HippyNerd

That is an interesting idea, but im having trouble figuring out how that works. It seems like its possible to do 5 RGB LEDs on 5 wires, You should be able to control up to 20 LEDs on 5 wires, however Im not able to imagine that without some more help, can you show me a drawing, that often helps. Technically you should be able to control your 125 LEDs on most microcontrollers, the cube runs 192 LEDsMost microcontrollers dont have 25 gpio pins, and you really kind of need gpio pins to do charlipelexing because they need tri-state logic, and shift registers wont do that, they are binary.I think that the arduino mega should do it, I have one but I havnt used it much, because nanos do most everything I need...It might also be possible to use a couple nanos to do what you want.Anyway, it sounds…

That is an interesting idea, but im having trouble figuring out how that works. It seems like its possible to do 5 RGB LEDs on 5 wires, You should be able to control up to 20 LEDs on 5 wires, however Im not able to imagine that without some more help, can you show me a drawing, that often helps. Technically you should be able to control your 125 LEDs on most microcontrollers, the cube runs 192 LEDsMost microcontrollers dont have 25 gpio pins, and you really kind of need gpio pins to do charlipelexing because they need tri-state logic, and shift registers wont do that, they are binary.I think that the arduino mega should do it, I have one but I havnt used it much, because nanos do most everything I need...It might also be possible to use a couple nanos to do what you want.Anyway, it sounds interesting, I hope to see what you got cooking there.

The original code only works with common cathode LEDs, there is a setting you can change to make it work with common anode, but I cant remember what it is right now. You can use the common anode code that I used in a different instructable, but I probably dont have test code for common anode. You could modify the code to make it work with your cube. Using a tool like that can help you figure out if you have wiring problems, and people often have wring problems with this thing.

Its been a while since Ive messed with any of these, so I may be a bit rusty on it, but I think you could use the test code to help figure out what LEDs are working right and not. It should light them up one at a time. From there you can try to figure out if you have a broken connection, or miswiring, its most likely one or more of those. If it becomes too difficult, one thing you can do is to desolder all the wiring under the cube down to just the 16 spires, then test the individual spires to assure that those are all correct. This is also a good time to mark each spire so that you get them all aligned the right way when you put the 4 layers of wiring between the spires

Sounds great, let us know how it works out

The charlieplex cube is like multiplex on steroids as far as number of LEDs you can control, but the duty cycle is 1/64, meaning it only lights up one voxel at a time. If that voxel uses 3 LEDS (red, green, and blue). Technically it could run 60ma if the LEDs are on full current level of 20ma each, and running at 5v should be way higher than 20ma, but the duration is soo very very small that the junctions dont have time to heat up enough to be damaged. This design is really different than most typical multiplexing where you do a row, or plane all at the same time.

I for one would like to see this 3.3v charlie cube. I think 2x8 will work, but im unsure. Running at 3.3 may minimize any ghosting, I honestly never noticed a problem with it, but others seem to have problems sometimes. Technically it does work fine at 5v, I ran one 24/7 for over a year without resistors, and there is no discernible amount of wear at 5v, but 3.3 is closer to the forward voltage of the LEDs, so it should be kinder to them.

Im glad you got that worked out!I usually dont usually have trouble with the onboard LED, but ive read about others removing it for this reason. You can usually make this without the LEDs, however the LEDs make it "safer" as it brings the 5v closer to the LEDs forward voltage. Technically you should never feed these guys 5v, but I think that its very short duration prevents the junction from being damaged, anyway, the resistors are an extra safety measure that does come at the cost of a little bit of brightness.

I havent really messed with the software enough to give you examples, but The library has a bunch of groups of LEDs that you can control, an all the controls, brightness, color, .... are in the programming.Look for examples for this made by other people, Ive found some fun new stuff

Nice example of freeform prototyping

Yeah, a lot of times I just need a few parts, and I usually just use a soldering iron, but some parts (like electrolytic caps ) are often hard to remove with just an iron. I also use hot air (paint stripper works), for removing parts in bulk, or for stubborn parts. The first several videos are through hole/soldering iron, the last few videos are heat gun/smt parts. How do you bake your boards? toaster oven? hotplate? Ive also used a solder pot, and thats real nice for some things too.

Thank you for your kind words. I hope have have lots of fun saving and making new electronics, also, you are welcome.

I used to do this. but I found that its just a whole lot easier and better to get a phone bank charger because its all in one nice package. You do have a couple problems with the phone bank devices though, one is that they shut off if there is not enough draw on them (they think the phone is charged...), The other is that they dont have really awesome batteries, like the good 18650s (AW, panasonic, ...)

You are welcome buddy, im glad you enjoyed my instructibles.These charliecubes are a very curious thing, the more you mess with them, the more fun things you learn. They are on the lower end of image quality, you can make better quality imaging with LED drivers or even shift registers, like you mentioned earlier.

It does it with a special kind of multiplexing called charlieplexing, that only works with diodes (LEDs are diodes). This cubed has 64 voxels, and each voxel has 3 LEDs (red, green, blue). Thats a total of 192 LED, and obviously a nano doesnt have 192 I/O pins. Wired for charlieplexing, it turns out that you only need 16 I/O pins, and a nano does have enough for that.A simple explanation of charlieplexing requires 2 LEDs, if you join both cathodes, or both anodes (either way works, just not both). and you connect a coin cell battery one way, it will light one LED, but not the other, if you reverse the battery, it will light the other LED, and not the first one. If you look at one the diagrams that uses 4 RGB LEDs, you can see that its controlled with 4 leads. If you connect a battery to a…

It does it with a special kind of multiplexing called charlieplexing, that only works with diodes (LEDs are diodes). This cubed has 64 voxels, and each voxel has 3 LEDs (red, green, blue). Thats a total of 192 LED, and obviously a nano doesnt have 192 I/O pins. Wired for charlieplexing, it turns out that you only need 16 I/O pins, and a nano does have enough for that.A simple explanation of charlieplexing requires 2 LEDs, if you join both cathodes, or both anodes (either way works, just not both). and you connect a coin cell battery one way, it will light one LED, but not the other, if you reverse the battery, it will light the other LED, and not the first one. If you look at one the diagrams that uses 4 RGB LEDs, you can see that its controlled with 4 leads. If you connect a battery to any two LEDs, one and only 1 LED will light, if you reverse polarity, it will light a different one. With the 4 LED example (just like in the cube example), you can actually light any combination of LEDs within a single voxel. With a common anode spire, you ground one pin, and put a few volts on any combo of the other 3 pins to light up to 7 different colors, with combinations of red, blue and green. Both of these examples are ideal charlieplexing, where every single wire combination works. The top of this instructible has links to more details about charlieplexing, and my other instructibles about charliecubes.

yep

Cool. nice job on it too. I left some wiring under the dash so that I could add footwell lights too. Ive considered lighting from under the dash, or from under the front seat, but I havnt actually tried any lights there yet. I also want to put some in the engine bay

Yeah, those are groovy, I have some myself. There are many ways to control it, wifi is popular, and there are lots of instructables that can help with that.You could even do it with a attiny and a simple program and have no need for remote.Post something here after you get yours done up the way you like.

I dont have a schematic. I do have a few other instructables with more info about building them. I did make a schematic for a spire, but I cant find it right now.Some folks made a PCB, I havent tried it, but you can probably find a schematic from here:http://fritzing.org/projects/pcb-for-4x4x4-rgb-charliecube

The repaired code may be posted below somewhere, I havnt looked at this code in a long time, and would prefer to not look at it, its kind of ugly.

cool

Yes

If you can get the switch out, you may have to rewire a new switch, and drill a hole and mount the new switch. I would see if you can get the old bolt off, even if I had to chisel/file/saw it off.

Any constant 12v power source. If you cant find one, you may need to run a wire to the battery (or some place that you find 12v, with the key out). I suggest putting a small fuse, like 5amp, for short protection if you run a wire to the battery.

Awesome buddy, thats great news. Now that you have a working cube, you can mess with programs, and really make it your own thing.

DIfferent color LEDs have different forward voltages, the red ones are always very low, usually just under 2 volts, and the blue and green are around 3 volts. The ghosting you are seeing is a direct result of the unequal pairing. Since the microcontroller is running at 5v, and this design doesnt use resistors, technically they are runing much higher voltage (and current) than they should be, but the resistor value is different for different color LEDs, so you cant add one size resistor to equalize things. I have found that adding a resistor on each of the 16 microcontroller leads does help reduce the ghosting some, but it comes at the cost of brightness.If the cube is run in daylight, its hard to see, if the cube is run in the dark, then being dimmer is not really a problem. Ive used betw…

DIfferent color LEDs have different forward voltages, the red ones are always very low, usually just under 2 volts, and the blue and green are around 3 volts. The ghosting you are seeing is a direct result of the unequal pairing. Since the microcontroller is running at 5v, and this design doesnt use resistors, technically they are runing much higher voltage (and current) than they should be, but the resistor value is different for different color LEDs, so you cant add one size resistor to equalize things. I have found that adding a resistor on each of the 16 microcontroller leads does help reduce the ghosting some, but it comes at the cost of brightness.If the cube is run in daylight, its hard to see, if the cube is run in the dark, then being dimmer is not really a problem. Ive used between 75 and 150 ohms, and 100 ohms seems to work pretty good, but there is no perfect/ideal value.There is also a little bit of an issue with the built in LED on pin 13. Some folks remove the LED, others have re-wired and programmed to use a different pin than 13. It doesnt bother me, so I havnt bothered to change it.