Nice of you to say, thank you.

Jameeluddin Sheikh Thanks 😊

Hi David, thanks for your very kind comments, they are much appreciated.

M449h0nd Thanks and your welcome.

Thank you…

Hey Ron, hope all works out well with the PCBs from China. Mine were made in China but through a 3rd party here in the UK. I now have a contact in China who I can converse with me in way better English the I can in Chinese, but not yet attempted PCBs with him yet. I'm only just looking at PICs myself, and I can see they are great devices but overwhelmed by how many different ones there are. They also seem less strait forward to program than Arduino. Please let me know how your PCBs & project turns out.

Thank you, and good luck. Let me know how you get on.

Hi Jim, Thanks for the comment/feedback, which is all valid and useful info. Also glad your project worked first time, well done. Now that I have a CNC router and a 3D printer of my own, I would also make my jigs using those tools. I also agree about skipping some of the LED testing, and for all the same reasons you suggest. I would also great a new LED leg bending jig that didn't bend the legs quite so close to the LED. Thanks again, Steve

Joffre Paredes Thank you.

+jlazell Hi jlazell, Thanks for all the kind comments. I'm still planning the 12x12x12, I did a proof of concept on a 4x4x4 using the neo-pixel and that was sort of okay but not quite as good as I would like it. $202 for 5 of each board sounds really good to me. The base pcbs cost me more than that in UK pounds alone. Just be aware the boards are still prototypes with minor improvements required. They function just fine but the Base PCB may be a bit bowed. This is because I only place copper fill on one side, plus I should have grounded it. The Shift Register boards could of with better silk screen and smaller holes. The Anode Driver board you will find some pads harder to solder because the are directly on the power planes, which sap the soldering iron heat.  Good luck and do let me know how you get on. Steve

+Steve Manley I got my boards from PCBway and they are gorgeous! 3-4 days processing time and OVERNIGHT shipment from China, and less than half the price of anyone else, wow! I can't recommend them enough. All silkscreen is perfect. The base is slightly bowed as you said but my stand should correct that. I actually downloaded Fritzing in order to coper fill and ground the bottom but it wouldn't let me open the Gerber files. I have zero experience designing circuit cards and didn't spend much time trying to figure out how to open and modify them. I saw it said Revision 1.1 and thought maybe you had revised it after the fact. Anyway, I have all components soldered on, still need to make my jigs to build the LED matrix but I have no access to any woodworking tools. I tried to get them 3D printed but they warped. I'll try cardboard. The U.S. version of Element 14 (Farnell in UK, Newark in US) screwed up 30% of my order for components. I got gigantic resistors instead of Molex plugs, lol.

+jlazell Very please to hear you got your boards okay, sounds like a really good deal. Re the Gerber files and Fritzing, you really need the source files to edit the circuit board design. If you ever decide to re-do the base PCB then let me know and I'll edit the source files to include the copper fill on both sides with them grounded and send you new Gerber files. I find 3D printing in PLA to be far more successful than ABS, it doesn't warp so much. I think we have all been there with regard to ordering components and not receiving what we expected. I have a bunch of larger resistors and SM capacitors I didn't want and to be honest, it was my error.

Hi Jean, Thanks for the complements and I'm glad you managed to build a cube, but sorry you have some issues. You are correct. I was going to do a video, and I did start recording it, but got distracted for whatever reason and it never was completed. Sorry about that. The first thing is to identify the faulty LED and mark it somehow. You don't want to remove the wrong one like I did once. Depending on where the LED is, it can be relatively easy, or very difficult. If near the top or edges then it is much easier, but if in the middle and especially at the bottom and in the middle, then it will mean some parts of the cube may need to be removed temporarily. It also depends on the tools you have. Long slender non bulky side cutters and long nose pliers or tweezers are needed. Oh, and be sure the cube is powered off when you work on it. I forgot one time, and put the soldering iron deep into the cube and it took out even more LEDS. I think I have replaced 12 LEDS so far. Once you have the LED identified, and you can access it with the cutters, cut out the LED as close to the vertical and horizontal wires as you can, leaving the solder joints intact. Do not desolder, simply cut the LED away. Bend up the leads of the replacement LED, but only make a hook shape, not a full loop. Then using the pliers or tweezers, place the LED on top of the original solder blobs with the hooks around the wires. The LED should just about stay in place, but it may take several attempts. Then solder over the original joins, and the LED should be good to go, and you will hardly notice the repair was done. For the difficult to reach LEDs, I suggest you remove all the horizontal Anode wires on one side, possible both sides. This will allow you to gently spread the panels apart so you have more room to get the tools in, but be careful not to pry them apart to much, else they will bend and won't go back properly. Once the LED is replaced, make new anode wires and fit them. Hope this helps, and give me a shout if you need to. Steve

Hi Alan, Glad you completed your cube and got it working. If you look in my Dropbox where you got the burn-in code from, there is some additional code written by a guy called Dagan. His code uses Bit Angle Modulation (BAM) to get more colours displayed, plus some different effects.

Thanks. I was going to try that. Best

@@alanalexander6715 it’s well worth trying Dagan’s code.

+Ant Brown this cube is here www.ielectronicparts.com/product-category/do-it-youself/

+bill bedew Hi Bill, On my cube JP2 is just 4 GND connections. I only use one that connects to the Arduino GND. JP5 has OE2-CLK2 and here is an explanation copied from a reply to someone else with a similar query: JP3 of the Anode Driver board feeds Shift Register boards 1 & 2 and JP5 feeds boards 3 & 4 with one exception, JP5 pin 1 has no connection. Instead Pin 1 of JP1 on Shift Register board 3 is connected to pin 1 on JP3 of Shift Register board 2. The reason I had to do this is because the CLK, LE & OE signals are common to all 24 shift register chips and my Arduino struggled to drive that many inputs, so I split each of the 3 signals into 2 through a buffer chip on the Anode board, therefore each line drives fewer inputs. The DOUT (pin 1) of the Anode board JP3 only has to drive one shift register input of the first Shift Register board (JP1 pin 1) as that signal is daisy chained from one shift register to the next. and doesn't need buffering. Here is a wiring schedule that may also help: Anode JP3 - Shift Reg 1 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 1 JP3 - Shift Reg 2 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 2 JP3 - Shift Reg 3 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Anode JP5 - Shift Reg 3 JP1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 3 JP3 - Shift Reg 4 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 ALL Shift Register Boards JP2 Pin 1 - Not used but has 5V Pin 2 - Connected to Anode Borad X4 5V OUT Pin 3 - Connected to Anode Board X5 GND Pin 4 - Board 1 - Pin 4 Board 2 - Pin 4 Board 3 - Pin 4 Board 4 Anode Board +6V from Power Supply - X4 6V IN 0V from Power Supply - X5 GND

Thanks Steve that's been a big help. Regards Bill

Thanks for your comments and glad your making progress. The next base PCB I design (if I ever get round to it) will have the shift registers included, which would hopefully improve the complexity of the underside of the cube even though it isn’t as complex as other cubes I’ve seen. Ultimately I will be using a Teensy 3.1 microcontroller, which has a much smaller footprint, is a lot faster and has much more memory. The down side being it runs on 3.3 volts, so extra circuitry is required to match the 5 volts required to drive the rest of the circuits. I also need to look at Kevin’s code and do something more with my test patterns. I also need to get PWM working as well, as I’m currently only delivering 7 colours (8 if you include all leds off).

@@stevemanley3685 Is there are reason that you used the TLC5916IN in stead of the TLC5940? The later has build in PWM, and the advantage of having 16 channels in stead of 8 reducing the number of components. www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tlc5940.pdf

Arpeggio Hi, there were several reasons and I can’t remember all reasons. My design was based on Kevin Darrah’s cube and he didn’t use that chip. I think the only version of the chip I could get was surface mount, and I had no experience mounting such chips. I think cost might have been a factor, the amount of memory needed to address that number of bits for that many LEDs on Arduino UNO, may have been a restriction. If I were to do another cube, and based on my learning experience, I’d certainly give it more consideration if I were to do another cube.

@@stevemanley3685 Thank you for your reply, i also was inspired by Kevin Darrah's cube, although he explains it really nice (also the more low-level technical workings) your build looks a lot cleaner (especially with the use of the jigs you made). I really like it that you made the decision to go for a PCB solution. Looks a lot cleaner and keeps the amount of soldering to a minimum.

Hi Charles, sorry to say that I don't sell the PCBs. It's just a hobby project where I decided to share my experience of it with others. Although I do have spare base PCBs, I don't have spares of the shift register boards anyway. The Gerber files are available for download (see links in the description). If your in the UK, I got the boards made through Proto-pic.

Hi, Thanks for the suggestion, but the cube already is displaying yellow, as well as red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and white. If and when I get around to it, I will be able to make the cube display many many other colour variants using a technique called Bit Angle Modulation that can be implemented in the software without further modification of the hardware.

+Slegiar Dryke Hi Slegiar, The shift register boards are wired blue green red blue green red with each row of blue green red shift registers connecting to just 1 row on the base PCB, so yes 2.5 boards could work and I don't think the half board would need tweaking either, just leave off the second set of 3 shift register chips. The Anode board could also be used, just leave off the appropriate 3 MOSFET's. I even think the base PCB can be used, even if you were to cut it down to size. Then all you need is the re-coding.

+Blue Ice It sounds like you have a short circuit somewhere, be it a faulty component, circuit board or solder joint. Try powering each board in turn to see which one is causing the issue.

Sebastiaan Maes Hi Sebastian's, The reason I used that MOSFET is because I copied Kevin Darrah's driver circuit, but I did away with the driver transistors he used that invert the signal and did the invert in software instead. It simplified the circuit and saved a tiny bit of cash. The buffer chip is needed to drive the 25 SR inputs because the micro controller wasn't good enough to drive that many inputs itself, mainly because of my SR chip choice. 16x16x16 WOW! I did contemplate a cube of that size but realised it is a significant magnitude in order of effort. I was going to try a 12x12x12 instead using WS2812 discreet LED's but the wiring wasn't sturdy enough and looked shoddy when I tried a 4x4x4 proof of concept. You will need a much faster micro controller for the computation and a lot more memory for a 16x16x16. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Andrey, on my cube it’s connected to the reset pin, but you can connect it to any other IO pin and have it do whatever you like.

Thanks for your comments. I would like to say that the knowledge I have isn’t that enormous compared to some other cube builders, but if you’ve never done anything like this before then I guess I could look very knowledgeable LOL I recommend you jump right in and enjoy the voyage of discovery. I do have a little bit of an electronics background, but I had never done anything like this before. I hadn’t blogged, created a video and published it on KZfaq either, so I have had a big leaning curve all round and most of it has been very enjoyable. I also looked around at other cube builders for guidance, then went and did my own thing. I was encouraged to make the videos and write the blogs by a friend of mine (Max Maxfiled Editor on EE Times). I had done neither of these things before, and to be honest I don’t get much pleasure from reading and writing anyway. Having now created these videos and blogs, I do have a record of what I did that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, plus others get the benefit of my experience as well. Although creating the videos and writing the blogs has severely slowed down my cube building progress because they take me so long to do, I will say that the blogging has been useful because it does make you think more, plus you get some good feedback and advice from others that can save you time tracking down problems. The next video will be how to replace a duff LED, and I have had a few! Good luck should you decide to build a cube of your own.

***** When you say you have 'a little bit of an electronics background' and I see you designing your own PCB (which are insanely beautiful and well thought out) I start to doubt if I could manage it. I just have a very basic and incomplete understanding of electronics. Also I have the added 'handicap' (but I love him to bits) of my 6 months old son who needs a certain level of attention. LOL My wife brings home the bacon, so to speak. =) That said, I think I'm up for the challenge but when the time comes. Or perhaps I will start and buy the materials and work at it when I have the time. I mean, I don't have to rush it, I just need to enjoy the experience. It's the journey and not the destination, so to speak. As for you Blog and KZfaq adventure. You did an excellent job! Trust me on this. I am, what you might call an 'experienced' KZfaq watcher for many, many, many years now and your video are way up there! You took the time and effort, and reviewed all instructions, added errata's and annotations. All of which are very clear and unambiguous. Also show us some 'mistakes' so people can learn from them. But I can give you one piece of advise (and it's personal taste I guess) but narrate all your videos and explain when, what, why and where (btw I noticed you have been doing it in the last couple of videos). Instead of playing some music in the background. I find it always affirming when there is someone telling what to do and hearing the passion that the have for what they are doing. Just my two cents =) And last but not least a barrage of question on my part. A note: I would understand if you don't want to answer them, so no offence taken if that would be the case. May I ask you how much did all the electronics cost? And where did you buy it? Is there a materials list? How can I get your PCB's? How to program the cube when finally build (is the a GUI for it?). And I can't seem to find the schematics, but then again maybe I overlooked it(?) Also are you available for some support. I won't nag and yank on your coat for help every day. I promise. =P Looking forward to your new videos! PS: I hope you can understand what I writing here. English isn't my native language as I live on the other side of the pond (summing your English). I'm Dutch. =)

bazZy33K When I say I have a little bit of an electronics background I do slightly under-sell myself. I actually have a qualification in electronics but will admit I haven't used it much since achieving it some 30 or more years ago. I have always struggled with the math, electronics principles and analog sides of it all, although I did do rather better on the digital subjects. Part of my early career was building prototype circuits on various prototyping boards. The circuit design was done by someone else then I was left to build them, and I was good at that. I also worked as a projects manager in a PCB manufacturing company for a short while, so yes I have experience but it was all around 30 years ago. The technology has moved on a massive amount since then, but that experience I gained does help. If you’re interested in building your own cube then I would recommend that you take your time, there is no rush. After all, mine has taken months to build. It's my hobby not my day job and I do it when I feel like it. I appreciate your feedback on the videos. It was actually my friend Max who kept encouraging me to do the voiceovers, he also wants me to appear in them, but it took a lot of courage to do the voiceovers so I currently draw the line at making an appearance, LOL. I would agree the older video’s would benefit from having voiceovers added, especially the one about testing (Part 4). Trouble is I would have to re-publish those videos and I would loose the view count they have accumulated. What’s done is done I guess. The cost of my cube is quite high mainly because of the PCB's being prototypes and the initial set-up costs involved. That alone has cost me £400 thus far, and I need another board made yet. However I could build a few cubes with the left over boards I have. In comparison the components are relatively cheap. If you want to get started then get the LED’s and tinned copper wire first. I got 1000 led's of ebay for about £35 and a roll of 20 gauge tinned copper wire for around £14. The LED’s came from China very quickly and the tinned copper wire from a UK based company. Here are the links: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1000pcs-5mm-Round-top-Diffused-Multicolor-4-pins-Common-Anode-RGB-LED-light-/151281086209?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:GB:3160 www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20-SWG-Tinned-Copper-Wire-500g-CB903-/160533739486?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:3160 Don’t bother testing the LED’s individually it takes ages and is incredibly boring. It doesn’t add much value because you will find very few to be faulty, wait till you have a few anode rails assembled then test them. If you find a duff LED, just replace it when its easy and before you assemble the cube. Other electronics components I got from either Proto-Pic or Farnell here in the UK. I would need to assemble a component list, as I currently don't have one, so thanks for reminding me. The ash wood I made the base from cost me £7 from a not-so local saw mill that had it’s annual trade show. Believe me that was a bargain. I also ended up buying a dovetailing jig, router and router table there, but you could build a base without these tools and use cheaper pine instead. I also purchased an Eagle PCB software hobbyist license so I can make slightly larger boards, like my anode multiplexing board; unfortunately that license is for non-commercial use only, so I’m not permitted to sell those boards. This doesn't impact the base PCB because I used Fritzing PCB software for that and Fritzing isn't limited like Eagle is. The PCB's are proto-types and are imperfect, hence another reason for me not to sell them. If you were in the UK and willing to accept they are imperfect then maybe I could help you out. The schematics can be viewed in the various blogs on EE Times and I really need to make them available as raw files elsewhere (like on GitHub), another task I need to do. I'm generally happy to answer questions on the KZfaq and EE Times web sites if you need my help. Hope this answers all or most of your queries for now. BTW your English is excellent and I had assumed you were either UK or USA based as apposed to being Dutch. As it happens I have English family living in the Netherlands.

***** First I would like to take the time to thank you for taking the time to read my walls of text and answering my questions. You have been very generous in giving me some of your free time and I really appreciate this. LOL It seems like we are using the KZfaq messaging system to 'e-mail' each other. The messaging system here is really inadequate, but it suits our needs for now I guess =P I read your electronics experience on your blog on EET, so I figured you 'under-sold' yourself in your previous message. But I understand the 'not tooting your own horn'. Measured modesty is a great virtue, Steve. =) As for your video's on KZfaq. The voice over is enough, I don't necessarily agree that people should 'host', 'present' or 'anchor' their own video's. I find it often quite distracting as it does hardly anything to get your point across. If it has added value, than by all means. But only if you're comfortable by doing so. =) You know, I think I do need a PCB if I'm to start this 'challenge'. I think I'm not the kind of person who likes to build rats-nest style circuits. Too messy and more things can go wrong. So I guess I need to rethink this carefully. Also I understand your reservation on your own PCB's. But they are beautiful and they work. Be proud. =D Another issue for me is the programming. I well and truly suck at it, and last but not least I hate it. That's why I asked if there is a GUI in order to program the frames for the cube animations. I hate to think that when I do succeed in building this beautiful RGB led cube I'm stuck with well just that, and I won't be able to enjoy it to any other extend than having successfully completing the monstrous build... Or is there a lot of code I can use to base my own animations of off. I guess that I need a kit to build this. Or at the very least the boards and the software to make the animations. I'm a bit dazed, confused and the illusion richer of me building this thing. ha ha ha Thank you for being so kind about my English. I do try my very best to keep it understandable and readable. =) Nice to know you got a connection to The Netherlands (btw thank you for calling it The Netherlands and not Holland because this is incorrect). Now I need some thinking to do what I'm going to do...

bazZy33K I have some suggestions that might help but I think we need to take this converstaion off line now, which means one of us has to publish our e-mail address.

Michael Jacoby Hi Michael, by all means you can have the files, they are in my Dropbox account, links are in this videos description. You need all the Gerber files, and any decent PCB manufacturer can turn them into PCBs. I know what you mean about Kevin's build, that's why I created the circuit boards.

+Mark .Phillis Hi Mark, Just tried to find the old e-mails for the related orders but no luck so far. I have 2 contacts at Proto-Pic, Drew Anderson and Ewan Fisher. Ewan is the PCB man. I'm sure that they will have a record of the boards for repeat orders. Just mention my name and the RGB LED Cube and hopefully they will remember me. The Base PCB was the biggest they had ever done. Being the upfront costs are already paid for you might find the boards a bit cheaper that I did, but you may have order more than you need. Let me know if you have any difficulties. Steve.

Many thanks for that, I'll give them a call. yeah not cheap but wow how good it looks with nice boards.

+Mark .Phillis Hi Mark, I didn't think to ask, Are you UK based?

Yes Steve I'm in Yorkshire 😑

Hi Sebastiaan, Unfortunately I haven't written such code for this yet, and if I had, i'd be looking to see how others did it, as they would more than likely write more efficiently code than I can. I have an L3D cube from Kickstarter that comes with a really nice plasma effect and the code is so concise and clever, I can't figure out how it works.

Hi, If you look at the end of the video you will see an image of all the boards connected to each other. The Arduino connects to the anode driver board which in turn drives the 4 Shift register boards as well as the 8 anodes. The 4 shift register boards connect directly to the underside of the base PCB using JP1 through JP24. LED1 Red Green & Blue connect to pins 1,2,3 of JP1, LED2 to 4,5,6 of JP1, LED3 to 7,8 of JP1 and pin 1 of JP2, LED4 to 2,3,4 of JP2, LED5 to 5,6,7 of JP2, LED6 to 8 of JP2 & 1,2 of JP3, and so on. Hope this helps.

JP Roy Hi, Good question and my answer is yes I would consider a different ration. Possibly 1.25" to 1.5". This makes the cube a bit bigger and possibly look less cluttered with all the wires thus improve visibility of led's at the back of the cube when viewed from some angles. The down side is it needs a bigger base PCB which would be more expensive.

***** Thank you very much for that suggestion. You are a natural teacher, keep up the excellent work !!

JP Roy Your welcome and thanks for the kind comments.

Hi Andrey, If memory serves, I think Kevin’s code might load and run, but it will not display correctly, and would therefor need some modification to work on my version of the cubes hardware design. Kevin’s code uses Bit Angle Modulation (BAM), which makes it a bit harder to adapt, but it is possible. Check out the code example from Dagan (see link to code examples in the Video Description who got BAM working on my design.

Hi Sebastiaan, I used coloured ribbon cable for most of the interconnections, slightly larger wire for the power and bigger still for the anode connections to the base pcb (which was overkill). Most of the wire just happened to be what I had laying around at the time.

Alfonso Flórez Hi Alfonso, check out the links in the Video Description, there is one to my Dropbox account where you will find circuit diagrams, parts list, and a connection schedule. If they don’t give you the answer you are looking for, then get back to me.

Hi, thanks for your comment. The construction of the cube should be no different, but the direct electronics driving the cube will need to be different. Eg. For common anode, the anode is connected to a positive voltage and the cathodes for each R, G & B LEDs are switched to ground to illuminate them. For common cathode, the cathode is connected to ground and the anodes for the R, G & B less are switched to a positive voltage to illuminate them

I can’t recall of the top of my head as to what driver transistors and driver chips you would need. The shift registers can stay the same.

@@stevemanley3685 Thank you very much for your info, i shall try and work it out with the help of youtube😂

@@wasdaletimelapse7658 Having thought about it, You will of course have to redesign the circuit boards. You might get away with the main LED board if you’re lucky, but the anode driver board will most likely need to be re done. The shift register boards might be okay if an alternative shift register chip for driving common cathode LEDs is available and are pin compatible.

+Anders Norgren Hi Anders, I have no personal experience of SuperTec's board but I understand that my cube matrix is comparable with it. However his electronics and software are different to mine and I can therefore not support you with regard to queries of that nature. You would need to ask SuperTec and I wish you good luck with that. Others have recently found him to be less than helpful. Should you need help with the matrix itself then I'm happy to help.

+Steve Manley Thanks for your reply.

+Sebastiaan Maes Hi Sebastiaan, I just created a wiring schedule for you, which is now available from my DropBox account here: www.dropbox.com/s/jdflm8djeiod0of/Steve%20Manley%208x8x8%20RGB%20LED%20Cube%20Circuit%20Board%20Interconnections.pdf?dl=0

thanks a lot!

+ALEX MAURICIO PEREZ GARCIA creo

+Steve Manley siii no cualquiera comparte su trabajo en este caso su proyecto... gracias...

Thanks

Hi, The only wire gauge I recorded was that of the tinned copper wire (20 SWG) I used for the cube itself. I used some quite heavy gauge insulated equipment wire for the 8 Anode connections, which was a massive overkill, and unnecessary, and standard equipment wire for most other interconnections, some of which were bits of a ribbon cable. I pretty much used whatever I had laying around. If you need me to be more precise, then I will have to go figure it out and let you know later. Do you need me to be more precise?

Appreciate that offer but I wouldn't fuss about it. I thought the anodes looked a bit heavy which is why I wanted to double check. Thanks for all the hard work you put into the videos, guides, and drawings.

jared m No problem Jared, and thanks.

@@stevemanley3685 Steve I hate to bug you again but do you have any revised Arduino code for Kevin Darrah's setup or Nick Schulze's? I was able to get your code sketch files working on an Arduino Uno and Kevin's "sort of working" on an Arduino Mega 2560. I really don't know how to describe what it's doing at the moment. The multiplexing seems like its all wrong. I'd like to pick your brain for some suggestions if you have the time.

@Jared: Jared I just uploaded a sketch to my dropbox account called Dagans_Demo. This is some code written by someone else who built my version of an 8*8*8 RGB Cube, and it does better things than my original code. In fact it uses Bit Angle Modulation like Kevin Darah's version: www.dropbox.com/home/Steve%20Manley%20-%203D%208x8x8%20RGB%20LED%20Cube%20Project%20-%20Shared%20Files/Arduino%20Sketches As it happens, Kevins code doesn't work so well on my hardware. Like you already found out, the multiplexing is kind of all screwed up. It can be modified to work, but I've never put in the effort to adapt it. I have no experience with Nick Schulze's code, so can't advise. Try Dagan's code. I know it works on my hardware design. Let me know how you get on.

Addendum : I have moved the Arduino onto the anode shift-register board, and at the same time swapped-out the Uno for a Nano. I have also added an audio input jack, and will work on some sound-to-light effects. The only hard-wiring needed now is the 6V power supply connection to the Anode S/R board - this makes it very easy to do the electronics. I have had a couple of enquiries about the PCBs, - a price reduction to £64 for the set will hopefully get more interest..... contact me at abtrain@tiscali.co.uk

+Dave Bate sounds like your making very good progress.

Slegiar Dryke Hi, yes the files are good to go. Just send them to your pcb manufacturer specifying what colour solder mask and silk screen printing you want etc. The short circuits was the fault of the manufacturer. All reputable manufacturers will auto test the boards and only send out the good ones. In my case one was faulty and they sent it anyway, but forgot to mention or mark it up as faulty. Luckily it was the first one I picked up and manually tested. The other 5 boards were all fine. The bowing is partly a design flaw and a manufacturing flaw. A replacement set were all fine.

Thanks

Hi Alan, thanks for your comment. Re the files, I do believe that someone tried to get the main base PCB made at JLCPCB and had issues with. uploading and verifying the Gerber files. So I re-drew the PCB in EasyEDA for him, but I can’t recall if I uploaded it for all to use, so I’ll have to check and get back to you on that. It was very unfortunate that the web site hosting the blogs lost or screwed up the blogs in a data migration and couldn’t be bothered to fix it. I did rewrite some of them into PDF and it was a lot of work not having the original blogs that had been through a professional editorial process. I had intended rewriting the remainder, but until now, no one has asked. It’s a bad time for me to do it right now because of other projects on the go, plus I’m just about to move house, so nearly everything will have to go on hold until that completes or allows. I do have the original Word files somewhere, which are rather raw and may not have images imbedded. My own pride wouldn’t let them go until they are tidied up. Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.

Hi Again Alan, Yes I can confirm that V2.0 Gerber files for the Main Base PCB are available for all on my DropBox account: www.dropbox.com/sh/wxrfckxhbkx8yk9/AADxd8ruqwuGQUnVjG7HMIDpa?dl=0

Having thought about the two previous answers, Yes, the zipped-up PCB or Gerber files are enough to order the PCBs, but use the V2.0 zip file for the Main PCB. When you order PCBs from JLCPCB, you will be prompted to upload the zipped file. You will then need to select a few options. The default is usually acceptable, except for the solder mask colour. Green is default, but if you want white or black for example for the Main PCB, then that's where you choose the option. There will likely be a minimum order of 5 PCBs and you select the quantity in multiples of 5. A bit of a waste for the Main PCB, but you can use one as a jig for assembling the 8x8 panels, after you drill out the relevant holes of course. The Anode and Shift Register boards are default for everything. I was a bit mixed up about the blogs. Yes I have three to re-issue, but they are not as important as the three I've already done. A blog for the Anode board and further programming were never written, and I'm not able to do it any time soon, for reasons stated above. The Final Assembly is already one of the three completed re-writes. Hope this helps.

Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate it very much. Good luck with the move! I will send updates as I move along on the project. Alan

Hello, again. Well, I have been testing and forming the leds. Just another 300 or so to go. I have made the jigs, and ordered the parts, which has been a daunting task with supply issues. The Gerber files worked great and .y pcbs are on their way. I had to go on ebay, to get the shift registers, as they are back ordered to 2023 at most suppliers. I have questions about the power supply and wiring, you used, and what type of switch power cord arrangement did you use? Hope your move was completed quickly, and without too much stress. Best wishes Alan

All parts and where I purchased them from can be found in the Full Parts List here: www.dropbox.com/sh/fyvszu2xnow17fg/AACotfHOmN3eo0gS3QTL1lH1a?dl=0 The link wires than make the cube were made from tinned copper wire that I bought as a role of wire, that I then straightened, cut to length etc. If you mean the link wires connecting the circuit boards, then I made those up myself. Hope this helps.

I wish you all the very best with that. It will be a lot of work.

@@stevemanley3685 Ooooooh yes, but I want to finish a project that also impresses myself when I look at it. I finally have the ability to pay for the components with my job because they ain't cheap haha.

Юрий Синицын Thank you

Hi, I’m not 100% sure, but I’m not aware of a pin compatIble replacement for the TLC5816, so to change the IC would mean a change to the circuit and PCB designs, in which case, yes the IC can be changed. If I were to re-design the the circuit myself, I would most certainly change the IC, but I have no plans to do so at this time.

Hi MK, Really sorry to hear your having difficulties. Short circuits on the cube can do a lot of damage to the LEDs, I know, cos I shoved my soldering iron into my cube to fix a duff LED, and forgot to power the cube down first. It destroyed around 12 LEDs, some right in the middle of the cube, which were hard to replace. Luckily it didn't damage any of the components on the PCB's, and has been working fine ever since. I loaded the Cube Test 0.0 code onto my cube and the code is running fine, so I can say it isn't the code, and must therefore be a fault on cube or the electronics driving it. It is difficult for me to figure out what the issue is that you currently have, but either the short on LED24 and the Anode wire has damaged something else as well, or there is a fault else where. I have a couple of ideas. 1. There is a short circuit, be it on the cube, or one of its LED's (i.e. a faulty LED), a short on one of the PCB's, or from a damaged component, that when certain pathways are made, it causes the system to stop, or prevent the cube from displaying anything more until I guess you reset it. I recommend disconnecting the PCB's from the cube and one another and check the cube has no short circuits, as best you can. Examine the PCB's to make sure there are no short circuits on those. Try running the cube with just one shift register board connected and see how that goes. You can try just one board connected to any of the LED columns. You can then add a second, then a third, then the fourth, just to see if there is a difference. 2. Check the wiring from the Anode board to the 4 Shift Register boards. There is a driver chip on the Anode board that splits out the CLK signal from the Arduino to CLK1 & CLK2. CLK1 should be connected to the first 2 Shift Register boards only, and CLK2 should be connected to the 3rd and 4th Shift Register boards only. If you have just one CLK driving all 4 boards, then you will definitely have problems. The CLK signal from the Arduino doesn't have output drive capability to drive 25 shift registers. By splitting the CLK through a buffer chip, there should be enough drive to cope with 12-13 shift registers for each of the CLK outputs. CLK1 drives the first 13 SR's (don't forget there is one on the Anode board), and CLK drives 12 SR's. 3. You may have purchased different variants of the Shift Register chips or the driver chip, which are causing the CLK signal to not be able to drive all the Shift Registers. Can't think of anything else right now, so I hope this helps.

Sorry, I don't understand the question?

Hi Tical, After all the years since this project was posted, you are the first to mention this discrepancy. I have checked the circuit diagrams and my physical cube, and I can only spot 2 100uF capacitors as well, so it looks like an error in the parts list. Sorry for that. Thanks for bringing it up.

Perfect Steve. Thank you for your answer and thank you very much for your project

@@tical3988 No problem at all, and thank you for your kind words. For info, I have updated the parts list and re-uploaded it.

@@stevemanley3685 perfect. Thanks for the update, it sure avoids confusion for future users;) little by little I continue to advance in the construction of the cube. Thanks for your time

jacques schweitzer Hi, Please post your comment in English.

All the files are here, even a parts list and where I purchased them from: www.dropbox.com/sh/fyvszu2xnow17fg/AACotfHOmN3eo0gS3QTL1lH1a?dl=0

Steve Manley thank you

Very happy to see your full support, I am fan of you by just seeing your first video from my end. Once again thank you for providing all information

Hey Sebastiaan, difficult to say but If you built the cube with my PCB designed and your using my code then most likely there is a faulty PCB, component or incorrect inter PCB connection. I would remove 3 of the shift register boards leaving the first one in the chain and see if that works alone. There is a wiring schedule on my drop box account (see link in the description) and check the inter connections. Check there is just over 5V on the SR boards. If you have access to a scope or logic analyser, check the signals out of the Arduino, you should see some digital activity even if your not sure what it looks like. Then trace the signals to and from each chip. The links to my blogs on EE Times have some detail of the digital signals seen on a logic analyser. You could see if the 8 outputs of the shift register chip on the anode board are multiplexing. You could edit the code and put some long delays in it so you can see the SR outputs are changing using a multimeter.

look how is my 8x8x8 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oq2Ufc53yr_RdqM.html

my 8x8x8

Hi, No, not at the moment.

Hi James, As yet I haven't finalised the design, so a finished schematic isn't yet ready. A parts list could be draw up of what I have so far and I'll look to doing that this weekend and post a comment here on KZfaq.

***** Thanks for your reply. I have already made the eight sections of leds, and would like to proceed further.

 FYI It would be great to get a .pdf of the test circuitry and the final schematic. I would think that the final schematic is an extension of the test circuit. If you published just the test circuitry in .pdf, then I could expand it to the final operating version. Thanks Again For Your Help.

James Nemcoes James... I don't have a finished schematic yet but I do have a schematic of the 8x8 panel test circuit, and you are correct, the final circuit is but an extension of the test circuit (almost). The test circuit schematic can be found on the bottom of page 4 of one of my blogs, here is the link: www.eetimes.com/author.asp?doc_id=1323899&page_number=3 Just click to enlarge the image and download it. A schematic of the shift register boards is also available from this link: www.eetimes.com/author.asp?doc_id=1325286&page_number=4 Hope this helps

***** Thanks for sharing your information

Try Cube_Test_V0.0

Then try Dagons_Demo

+Эдуард Пфо Hi there, JP1 of the first board (the one that sits directly under the Arduino) receives its input from the Anode Driver board, JP3 then connects to JP1 of the second board and so on. JP3 on the fourth board is not connected. Pin 1 of JP3 goes to pin 1 of JP1, pin 2 to 2, pin 3 to 3 & pin 4 to 4. JP2 is for the power connections, pins 1 & 2 are +5V, pins 3 & 4 are Ground. Hope this helps.

+Steve Manley, thanks! And JP5 of the Anode Driver Board?

+Эдуард Пфо Thanks for pointing that out, I'd forgotten about JP5. I therefore need to correct my previous responce. JP3 of the Anode Driver board feeds Shift Register boards 1 & 2 and JP5 feeds boards 3 & 4 with one exception, JP5 pin 1 has no connection. Instead Pin 1 of JP1 on Shift Register board 3 is connected to pin 1 on JP3 of Shift Register board 2. The reason I had to do this is because the CLK, LE & OE signals are common to all 24 shift register chips and my Arduino struggled to drive that many inputs, so I split each of the 3 signals into 2 through a buffer chip, therefore each line drives fewer inputs. The DOUT (pin 1) of the Anode board JP3 only has to drive one shift register input of the first Shift Register board (JP1 pin 1) as that signal is daisy chained from one shift register to the next.

+Steve Manley, thanks!!!

+Эдуард Пфо Here is a more detailed connection schedule: Anode JP3 - Shift Reg 1 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 1 JP3 - Shift Reg 2 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 2 JP3 - Shift Reg 3 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Anode JP5 - Shift Reg 3 JP1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 Shift Reg 3 JP3 - Shift Reg 4 JP1 Pin 1 - Pin 1 Pin 2 - Pin 2 Pin 3 - Pin 3 Pin 4 - Pin 4 ALL Shift Register Boards JP2 Pin 1 - Not used but has 5V Pin 2 - Connected to Anode Borad X4 5V OUT Pin 3 - Connected to Anode Board X5 GND Pin 4 - Board 1 - Pin 4 Board 2 - Pin 4 Board 3 - Pin 4 Board 4 Anode Board +6V from Power Supply - X4 6V IN 0V from Power Supply - X5 GND

Dinis Roxo Hi, I don't currently have separate layer prints other than those in the Gerber files, I would have to see if I can create them. Whatever I create, they will end up as PDF files.

Steve, so how do I print the PCBs? And I do not know how to do it If you can help, I thank you.

Dinis Roxo Hi Dinis, the files I have provided are the Gerber files that you would send to a PCB manufacturer. I have not provided individual files that can be printed as such. I believe there are free Apps on the internet that allow Gerber files to be viewed, and possibly printed. The boards are double sided with through hole plating and many via holes, therefor best suited for making professionally as the recommended method.

Hi There, Thank you for your kind comments and for re-posting in English. If I were to re-create the PCB's myself, I would also use JLCPCB, so good choice! Yes it is possible to use different shift registers, but without checking, I'm not sure there are any that give the same characteristics that are pin compatible and cheaper. If I were to re-design the shift register boards again, I would use different chips with built in PWM (Plus Width Modulation), that in fact would cost more. Kind Regards.

0.125W will do fine. 5V as it turns out is also just fine to run the cube. I found I needed 6V when fault finding an earlier design, before I realised the cause of a problem. After I finished the cube, I tried it with 5V and it worked just as well.

@@stevemanley3685 Do I use 6v or 12v Mother resistance is only 1k 0.25w in my country

@@alirifaat645 DO NOT USE 12V!!! You will likely destroy the Arduino if you do. 6V is okay, 5V is preferred.

@@alirifaat645 0.25W is also okay. These resistors are larger and may not fit the circuit board as well, but will work no problem.

Hello, thank you for your comment. From what I think your saying is that some of the columns are not working, but the detail you have provided is not enough for me to determine a possible cause. When you say column, is it a whole 8x8 panel or some columns on one panel or the same columns on all panels, or different columns on different panels. Maybe you could post some photos of the fault. I can tell you that if just one led in a column goes short circuit, it can prevent the rest of the LEDs in that column from working, but usually only affects one colour, like red, green or blue. You could try swapping the shift register boards around to see if the fault moves or stays the same.

@@stevemanley3685 @Steve Manley Possible link Facebook to allow me to send the project image

@ ali rifaat: sorry to say that I do not have a Facebook account or any other social media account other than KZfaq, so it is unlikely I will be able to view any pictures you post there. Do you have DropBox or GoogleDrive where you can share the pictures?

@@stevemanley3685 yes alirifaat01@gmail.com DropBox or GoogleDrive

@@alirifaat645: Can I suggest you upload your images to your Dropbox then share the link so I can view them.

I used a company called Proto-pic in Scotland who outsource to a company in China.

***** thanks! how much did the baseplate cost you?

About £250 for 5 boards minimum order. It's a prototyping service so there are setup costs involved.

***** I think I will make my cube base w/ a wooden plate with protoboard glued under it :D obviously w/ 0.1 inch grid-snapped holes^^

Interesting idea, let me know how you get on

Thank You. It is greatly appreciated.

Hi, there is a link in the video description to my Dropbox account. In there is a folder called Arduino Sketches. That is where you can find the code.

@@stevemanley3685 sorry. i cant find the code. can you help me ?

Minh nguyễn please try this link: www.dropbox.com/sh/fyvszu2xnow17fg/AACXb0g3ZDZ2JoD4YBmyFZKpa/Arduino%20Sketches?dl=0&lst=

Jorge Vidal Hi Jorge, The largest cost is the LEDs and the circuit boards, and will depend on where they are sourced. Check out the parts list link in the description for a rough idea of cost. However, I would expect the circuit boards and LEDs can be purchased for much less if you shop around and were to deal directly with China for the PCB,s.

@@stevemanley3685 it's a very clean project!... what kind of wire u use to conncect the leds?

@@@jlvidalsyt​- Thanks, I used 20 SWG (Standard Wire Gauge) Tinned Copper Wire

S.manley227@googlemail.com

+JP Roy Hey JP (if I can call you that), Sounds like your making good progress with some exciting stuff to come. Unfortunately the URL you provided is an unrecognised address so I can't yet see what you have achieved. I'm glad you find my videos helpful and if you could re-post the link to your video and pictures that would be great.

Hi Steve, This is a link to the FastLED community where you should find my post... plus.google.com/communities/109127054924227823508

+JP Roy Hi JP, Looks really awesome, nice job indeed. Couldn't quite make out what micro controller and electronics you have implemented though. Whatever it is it looks simpler than mine.

Hi again Steve, I hate to say this but it is not just simpler, it is also quite a lot more powerful. The microcontroller is a Teensy3.1 and it is a very very powerful little 32 bit, ARM Cortex M4 based microcontroller. Comes with 256K program space, 64K ram and runs at 72MHz. I actually overclock it at 96Mhz! Note that It is not open source like Arduino but easily available. Detailed info about it at.. www.pjrc.com/store/teensy31.html Apart from the Teensy, there is in fact NO other electronics. One of the pictures shows everything, it is just 8 wires that connect to each of 8 slices of 8X8 LEDs.

Actually, I forgot to mention that there is also an adapter board that plugs directly into the Teensy. It is an OCTOWS2811 adapter that is made specifically for the Teensy3.1 That board allows the parallel transmission of data to 8 separate strings of WS2811/WS2812 . Effectively making data transmission 8 times faster ! On top of that, the Teensy uses DMA technology to send LED data. That frees up microprocessor time for more useful stuff like complex calculations of the next frame of data to be transmitted to the LEDs.

Carlos Andres Betancourt Hi Carlos, Please can you post your comment in English. Thanks.

excuse friend, you do projects? i'm from peru, I need the construction, the programming I do .... you can make a project and tell me how much it costs

diomedes Tejada this my e-mail: diomedstejada@gmail.com

diomedes Tejada Hi, You can find all of the available files from my dropbox site which includes a parts list and cost of each item. I have never added it up myself but it must be around £600 UK pounds with the biggest cost being the PCB's. Hope this helps?

***** Thanks (y)