Carlitos' Project: RGB LED Mood Cube

This is the first in a series of electronic / robotic DIY projects. These projects are accompanied by instructional videos that will help you trough the many steps involved in completing the task at hand. For this first iteration, we are making an RGB LED Mood Cube.

Glowing colour-changing objects are always cool. So why not make your own? Mood lights have been around for some time and, while it is cool to have a colour changing light, it would be even cooler to have something more complex and geekier. An RGB LED Mood Cube seems to be the way to go.

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Step 1: Materials

seeedstudio-rainbowduino-led-driver-platform-atmega-328.jpg

Below is a list of the components you will need to make the LED cube:

	1x LED Cube Kit Provides the LEDs and all the structure required to create an LED cube
	1x Rainbowduino It is a special Arduino microcontroller built to control up-to 192 LEDs.
	1x UartSB (USB-to-serial adaptor). A USB to serial interface that is used to program the Rainbowduino (or for serial communication in general) trough a USB port.
	1x USB Cable A cable to hook-u the UartSB to the Computer
	1x 9V Wall Adapter A power supply that will power the cube once the assembly and programming are done.

richardoson says: Apr 29, 2013. 8:40 PM

This looks great! I want to try your code on my Rainbowduino cube, but I have Rainbowduino v3.0b and yours in this project is v1.2. When I upload it, only 6 LEDs light and they don't color change. Do you happen to have, or could you update your code for the Rainbowduino v3.0?

RobotShop (author) in reply to richardosonApr 30, 2013. 11:17 AM

You can find the latest code and samples here: http://seeedstudio.com/wiki/Rainbow_Cube

SuddleD says: Aug 16, 2011. 3:17 PM

Is there other versions of the Plasma example code? I like it and I got it to work, but I would like to have more options, I was wondering if anyone has modded the Plasma code, or if there is other code available for the 4x4x4 cubes?

hatschel says: Apr 14, 2011. 5:24 PM

this is is commercially kit,whats about with Diy?
soldering together?

gcampton in reply to hatschelJun 2, 2011. 4:24 PM

It doesn't really matter if it's DYI or not, this is the "Instructables" website. Instructables don't HAVE to be DYI projects. Instructables implies "Instructions" from the name. TBH though I did also think this was lame...

RobotShop (author) in reply to hatschelApr 15, 2011. 5:55 AM

Hi hatschel,

DIY is certainly an option, and there are many people online who have made custom LED cubes using custom microcontrollers. One approach is to simply bend the connectors on each LED and solder them accordingly. Having the pre-made PCBs makes it easier to solder together (and aesthetic since it makes a perfect cube). If you have some ideas, we are open to showing different types of projects.