{"id":820,"date":"2018-12-16T19:50:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T19:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paranoidprofessor.com\/?p=820"},"modified":"2018-12-16T19:50:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T19:50:52","slug":"just-making-it-a-new-cube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paranoidprofessor.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/16\/just-making-it-a-new-cube\/","title":{"rendered":"Just making it – a new cube"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time back, I had a fair amount lot of free time.\u00a0 I spent the time working with a friend in the evenings to create my own\u00a0LED cube from scratch<\/a>.\u00a0 It was actually quite a bit of fun, the electronics was not overly complicated with most of it being done by a raspberry pi.\u00a0It was fun to see both the hardware and the software side by side.<\/p>\n

\"4-4-4-cube\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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However, I am not an electronic engineer and I had to make some decisions which limited the overall solution.\u00a0 Part of this was the solution was pretty slow and the LEDs were actually not overly bright.\u00a0 The cube looks good in a dark room but you cannot hardly see it in normal lighting conditions.<\/p>\n

I was also a bit disappointed in exactly how my cube wasn’t completely symmetrical.\u00a0 Not bad for an amateur but I was hoping for better.\u00a0 This time I was going to try my hand at building someone else’s kit.<\/p>\n

Building the cube<\/h2>\n

The most challenging part is to actually build a LED cube. \u00a0Keeping the spacing consistent and soldering internal connections of each plane makes building the cube an intricate 3D puzzle.<\/p>\n

The plan to create a very symmetrical cube was to build a template to assist in building the layers. The idea is that if each layer is built identically the chances are better that all the LEDS will line up for the rows and columns.<\/p>\n

There are two different directions to go, either to build each horizontal layer or to build a vertical layer. \u00a0In my previous cube I learned the hard way that it is really pretty difficult to assemble these horizontal levels. This was while trying to make 4 internal connections that were not accessible from the edge. \u00a0Building a larger cube will have considerably more internal connections, in the case of a 8x8x8 cube this would be 49.<\/p>\n

My mentor Mikhail suggested that it would be much easier if I used a vertical slices. \u00a0He suggested it might make the assembly easier. \u00a0I have seen other examples on youtube assembling either as slices or even just adding each column as it is completed.<\/p>\n

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First attempt<\/h2>\n

The first step was to try and build the template to create each vertical slice.<\/p>\n

\"form-template-3\"<\/a>The template looks pretty good in this picture but unfortunately looks can be deceiving. The actual LED’s are not perfectly aligned but more importantly the groves are not all straight, some of them angle slightly. \u00a0This makes it quite difficult when trying to get the layer off of the template.<\/p>\n

I tried to create a few small “slices” using this template but discovered that the defects, mainly the groves for the vertical lines, make using this template infeasible.<\/p>\n

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Second Attempt<\/h2>\n

I still wanted to build the cube in slices but\u00a0I needed some assistance to create a more perfect template. \u00a0This would be easier if I had better wood working tools and wood working skills so I thought perhaps I could purchase some parts that could allow me to create a consistent template.<\/p>\n

I started with small wooden blocks that already had a hole drilled through them. \u00a0Despite how similar they appear in your hand they are not truly identical. \u00a0My solution was to get a long straight wire to help ensure that they are all nicely aligned. It is not obvious but after all the blocks were glued down I had to add glue around each block to help make each block more secure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This template for building a panel does not use the legs of the LED’s hardly at all.<\/p>\n

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Third Attempt<\/h2>\n

My third and final attempt was to to build the cube in an entirely different way.<\/p>\n

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Of course once you create a lot of rows like this, you need another template in order to assemble them into a panel.<\/p>\n

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In retrospect this should be intuitively easier to assemble a cube from panels.\u00a0 The problem with building and assembling each layer is that it is necessary to connect up all of the “columns” with a led. In the case of a 8x8x8 cube this is the task of attaching 64 columns on each layer.\u00a0 The wires for each column would of course be standing straight up which means you need to carefully get your soldering iron to each spot without really bending these wires.<\/p>\n

Most of the complexity This problem goes away when assembling the cube as a series of side panels.\u00a0 Of course you still do need to connect the different panels together.\u00a0 This task is much simpler as it is no longer necessary to have eight wires connecting each panel together at each layer.\u00a0 One wire is enough.\u00a0 This reduces the number of wires that need to be added to hold everything together from 64 to 8.\u00a0 I actually used a few more than that to give the cube some extra stability.<\/p>\n

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Another twist<\/h2>\n

I did play around with this alternative method as well.\u00a0 During my research I saw another cube developer who created a small loop<\/a> at the end of each leg and then fed the row or column wire through this loop and then soldered it.<\/p>\n

This other maker was creating a much more complicated RGB cube and needed to use this method, but it was really convenient in my case as it allowed me to create a very simple cube with clean lines.<\/p>\n

In the end, I used both this small loop along with my third attempt at building a template form.<\/p>\n

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Wire preparation<\/h2>\n

The template itself actually does quite a bit of the work, it keeps the LED’s separated and at the proper distance from each other.\u00a0 The only tricky part is that you need straight wire for the rows and columns but the wire tends to be purchased in spools.<\/p>\n

How to straighten wire was described in how I built my first cube so I won’t elaborate on it much here. \u00a0I will however give some links to all three methods for doing this.<\/p>\n

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  1. Pull the wire slightly [1]<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Use a drill through a board\u00a0[2]<\/a>\u00a0or with a vice [3]<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Straighten between a couple of boards<\/a>\u00a0or [4]<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. A pair of pliers<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In theory any of these methods will work to a certain degree.\u00a0 I never did try the drill method but in the end I decided for the final method.\u00a0 If the wire that you are using for the structure of the cube is reasonably thin it is possible to simply pull the wire a small bit with a pair of pliers just using your hands.\u00a0 You cannot straighten wires that are very long but with this method I could straighten a piece that would later be cut into three smaller ones that are each long enough for a 8x8x8 cube.<\/p>\n

    I did cheat a bit as I used a vice grip pliers and a pair of pliers.<\/p>\n

    Other preparation<\/h2>\n

    Actually there is not a lot of other preparation but it is a good idea to test your LED’s before assembly. \u00a0This step is more important if you are building a cube from scratch because you will most likely have a lot of LED’s available. \u00a0This step is important if you have a kit yet if one of the LED’s is substantially dimmer or doesn’t work you might find it difficult to get a replacement.<\/p>\n

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    3D LightSquared DIY Kit 8x8x8 3mm LED Cube<\/h2>\n

    I looked at a couple of sources for LED cubes on the internet. \u00a0I could have purchased one on amazon but they were a bit more expensive than I was willing to spend for testing out someone else’s cube.<\/p>\n

    I found an 8x8x8<\/a> cube kit on Ebay for a very attractive price, so I gave it a try. I was a bit unhappy to see that I received a kit but no actual instructions were delivered. \u00a0I went to the internet to see if I could find anything that would help me.<\/p>\n

    I did find plenty of pictures in the google search engine looking for my kit but perhaps one of the most helpful things was the following video and instructions that I found at the instructables.com<\/a> site<\/p>\n