LED Cube with Arduino and custom PCB

Step 2: Cube Construction

The first step is to construct the cube of LEDs.  My LEDs were very cheap and the leads were incredibly short.  This is why I used additional wire, which worked out very nicely.

Firstly, make yourself a wooden jig to hold the LEDs when you solder.  I spaced mine 1" apart.  Solder all the CATHODES (-) together in the plane. 

Once you have all 5 planes done, its time to go up!  Use a 1" spacer between the planes as you solder.  Be sure you run enough wire vertically for all 5 planes, and then some extra.  

Done? Congratulations! You just made about 300 solder joints!

Second Thoughts:   Upon completion,  it appears that the Cube leans, and thats because it does.  When attaching the planes to the vertical wires, I attached to the same side of the LED lead each time.  To avoid this, alternate which side of the lead you attach to the vertical wire. 

Comments

[yonch]

I think I did it wrong. Is the power to the LED's coming from the column or plane? I connected the short pin of the led to the plane and the long to the column.

[ajmontag]

Each plane is for negative, each column is for positive.

[yonch]

I'm very confused with the negative positive. According to the led pinout below, which pin is connected to the plane and which to the column?

[yonch]

Pinout:

[ajmontag]

Cathode is (-), meading the short lead is the plane.

[yonch]

What wire is used to build the columns?

[ajmontag]

This is the wire that I used:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BzxnN5Km48B30_egfA262dMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink