Introduction: 5x5x5 LED Cube
Welcome to our instructable about our 5x5x5 LED Cube
Made by Jesse en Thijs
After many months of work we have finished our project and here's the result. Believe me when I say a lot of science has gone into this project, if I were reviewing this as a teacher I'd let us graduate immediately.
This is a LED Cube, which means that we connected LEDs in a threedimensional way in the shape of a cube en I see you thinking: What's the use of this thing?
We did this to create cool light effects. That's the only real use. Cool, eh?
Jesse came with the idea for this project, when he was looking for inspiration for a project for physics, that had to be handed in at the end of the school year. I agreed it was a cool idea, so that's how we got started. After that we went looking for other people that had done similar stuff before us, that's the first thing we did. To be honest Jesse understands quite a bit more of this than I do. I mustly helped him putting it together and I wrote this instructable. Jesse is the project manager, he executed the entire idea.
Step 1: Collect All Tools and Materials
De volgende dingen heb je nodig voor deze cube:
- 125 LEDs (choose a color you like)
- soldering iron (recommended: fan for getting the vapours out of your face.)
- wood (optional cutting with a laser printer)
- 5x 110 Ω resistors
- arduino mega(for the great amounts of cables you're going to plug in)
- paperclips (later we used iron wire)
- enough isolated cabling
- shrinking tubes (those things that shrink when you warm them up)
- plexiglass (we made a roof over our project to protect it)
- a computer to connect it to, obviously...
Step 2: Begin
Verify that every LED works, it is pretty bad if you put the entire thing together and something doesn't work. Then you'd have to start again.
Then twist the positive side (the long one) around a nail and trim off the protruding part, now it wil look like something shown on the picture. Do this for each LED. I know that is long and boring, but it has to be done.
Now place the LEDs in a mold with the distance between the LEDs you want. The picture above shows an example.
Step 3: Soldering
- Now solder all negative sides to each other(img_2345.mov)
When you're done with that, solder all rows together
(img_2345.mov)
Then check the lights again if they are still working and if they have been correctly soldered.
(img_2348.mov)
Then cut off all the protruding pieces of wire, which ensures increased fancyness.
(img_2349.mov)
Repeat this for the other 4 layers.
- Place this layer on a piece of wood in which holes have been made, so that the cables go through them.
- Now insert cables through the curls (+ side of the LEDs) of the first layer and solder them on.
- After the second layer has been made. Place it through the iron wires you attached in the previous step.
- Repeat this for the other 3 layers(img_2416.mov)
- Wow, you've finished the boring part, continue with the next step.
Step 4: Cabling
Connect an iron wire from each layer down through the wood
- Now solder a cable to each of the protrusions at the bottom of the wood. If everything is okay there are thirty.
Place a shrinking tube around each of the connections so that they are well insulated and the connection will become loose less quickly.
Now connect the cables to the Arduino in the way shown in the diagram above.
Connect the wires of each layer to the 110 Ω resistors and the Analog ports A0 - A4.
Step 5: Programming
Now you can program your own light effects, but we will leave the code we used above if you are too lazy to program yourself. The video shows how the effects work. Good luck with creating your own program!
This is our program as example and test
Attachments
Step 6: Optional
We made a wooden underside with a laser printer and we made a plexiglass sheath to protect the LEDs. We also made this one with a laser printer. This is to protect the components and it increases fancyness.
Step 7: Congratulations
Congratulations!
Here's a video of how we did it and the end result we got
Waddle on...
