Arduino Projects: LED – 4X4X4 LED

Cube
 Tutorial45 Arduino Projects
An Anduino LED Cube is a fantastic project; it can be used as a
decoration piece or used with other equipment like
microphones or motion sensors for various applications.
Basically an LED cube is a 3 dimensional cube made out of
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The Cube can be made in various
ways but for this project, a simple setup is used that is
controlled by an Arduino Uno microcontroller.

LED Cube Concept

As seen in the image below, the cube is made up of an X-Y axis
and 4 layers stacked on top of each other. The bottom layer is
number 0 and the top one is number 3. Similarly, the LEDs are
numbered like a 3-dimensional matrix. So, the bottom left LED
is (1,1) on layer 0. The one above it is also (1,1) but on layer 1.
The one to the right of this corner LED is (2,1) on layer 0 and
so on. All the horizontal layers are the positive pins of the
LEDs soldered together.

All the negative pins of the LEDs are treated as columns of this
matrix cube. So we have 4 layers and 16 columns that make it
20 wires connected to the Arduino. The positive pins (layers)
have 100 Ohm resistors to limit the current flow to 20mA (the
standard current for an LED).
Working
The microcontroller – in our case an Arduino Uno – has current
sourcing limitation on its output pins i.e. it can only deliver a
safe amount of current before damage occurs. In the Arduino
Uno’s case, it is 40mA. So you must be wondering, wait a
minute, if an LED takes 20mA, how come we can turn on all
the lights at the same time and still not burn the Arduino
board? This is because at any given time, only a single LED is
on.

The human eye (due to persistence of vision) cannot see quick

flickering of an LED if it is switched on and off very fast. Since
the code on the Arduino runs very fast, our eyes think of
multiple LEDs as on. This also limits the current to safe levels
as at any given time only one LED is on and even if we take the
average current in 1 second, it is far below the danger
threshold. For example, you want to turn on the LED at the
bottom left of the cube, you will provide a positive signal from
the microcontroller to its layer i.e. layer 0, this will put a
positive voltage on the LEDs positive pin. Then you have to
instruct the microcontroller to ground the relevant column pin
of that LED, this will connect the negative pin of the LED to
ground and you have a complete forward biased circuit that
will light up the LED.

List of Components:
1. Cardboard or wood (about 1 inch thick)
2. 3V Button Cell
3. Sandpaper (medium grade)
4. 64 x Blue Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
5. 4 x 100 Ohm Resistors
6. 24 x Male-Male Coloured Ribbon Wires
7. 1 x Female Pin Socket/Header (should have 20 pin
sockets inline)
8. PCB Perfboard (about 24×10 cm)
9. Arduino Uno + USB Cable
10. Arduino Uno power socket adapter
11. 9V Batter adapter
12. 9V Battery
13. Zip-tie (25 cm)
14. Glue Gun + Glue Stick
15. Soldering Iron + Soldering Wire + Wet Foam
16. Desoldering Pump (incase soldering is bad)
17. Magnifying glass (to see your soldering)
18. Mini Wire Cutter
19. Mini Nose Plier
20. Connection wire for under PCB wiring (about 1m) and
sticky tape
How to Build
First of all, you will need a moderately thick cardboard or wood
(about an inch will do). Drill holes into it so that it forms a 4×4
cube pattern with equal distances between all holes.
In this case, a printed pattern was placed on top of the
cardboard and 5mm holes (each hole is 2.4cm from the next
one (centre-centre) were drilled for the LEDs. In the picture
below, you can see arrows that point to the direction of LED
legs; we will look at this later.
Now, you have to test and prepare your LEDs. You can use a
3V button cell for this purpose. Test all the LEDs so that you
avoid any trouble later!
If you want light coming out of all sides of the LED, you may
diffuse them by rubbing their plastic shell with sandpaper.
In the image below, the LED on the left is diffused and the one
on the right is in its original transparent form. Check the
difference!
Get your stuff ready for soldering. Line up the LED army and
get ready for some bending and soldering.
Remember, that the short leg of an LED is its Cathode (-ive pin)
and the long leg is Anode (+ive pin). If you are not sure, then
you can test it with a multimeter or a button cell to find the
polarity. Now, using nose pliers bend the cathode (short leg) at
90o angle to the right and then again bend it upwards to make
the shape as shown in the image below.

Place the LEDs in the cardboard but be careful about their

orientation. Remember the arrows in an image above? The
negative pins of the LEDs that are bent have to be aligned as
the arrows. This is because we will be making four such layers
and it is easy to solder them together. Bend all the positive
legs of all LEDs and do it such that they connect all the
positive terminals of the LEDs together, this will make your
positive layer.
However, you will see that the two areas in the middle of this
layer are left un-connected as shown by the red circle. You can
connect these pins with any solid wire cut from the LEDs.
Now, using a button cell, make a simple tester to check that
all the LEDs work. Hook up the positive wire to any place on
the layer and one by one check all the columns with the
negative wire.
First layer is complete.

Now cut all the extra pieces so that it is neat and tidy like the
image below:
After making four layers, you should get ready for the mega
soldering job!
In this project, simple cardboard pieces were cut and placed
between the layers to be soldered. This makes it easy to
solder them but you can always use other tools such as PCB
holders etc.
After soldering three layers, it’s a good idea to check all the
LEDs once again just in case. As before, connect the positive
pin of your button cell tester to the layer and then negative pin
to all the LED columns (-ive pins) one by one.

Looks like we found a bugger! Just cut the faulty LED’s legs as
short as you can and replace it with another one, but be
careful about the bending and lengths of both pins so that it
adjusts in the cube while maintaining integrity of the structure
as well.

Finally, the LED cube is soldered and this is how it should look
like:

Solder a 20 pin (or more) inline female header (0.1 inch gap
between pins) onto a readymade perfboard PCB and place the
Cube on it (column pins). You may temporarily bend some legs
of the LED cube under the board so that it doesn’t fall off but
don’t solder them yet. They will be soldered with the wires
coming from the female header pins later.

I burned some soldering points on the board, because the

soldering iron was too hot and it detached the copper from the
board, it also ruined the soldering for the female header.
Solder the resistors with one leg connected to the female
header pins and another to be connected to every separate
layer on the cube. Remember to look at the connection setup.
In this project the leftmost side is pin number 0 on the Arduino
all the way up till pin number 13 and then four Analog pins for
the layers and then two Analog pins for the remaining columns.
Do some quick testing via the female header socket as well.
Connect all the wirings using ribbon jumper cables (male-male)
according to the connections table shown below. The Arduino
can be held onto the board with a zip-tie so that it can be
easily removed for use in other projects. You can power the
Arduino with a 9V battery and Arduino power plug (after
installing the code onto the board).

For Columns:

Coordinate (X,Y) Pin Number on Arduino

1,1 13

1,2 12

1,3 11

1,4 10

2,1 9

2,2 8

2,3 7
 2,4 6

3,1 5

3,2 4

3,3 3

3,4 2

4,1 1

4,2 0

4,3 A5

4,4 A6

For Layers:

Layer Number Pin Number on Arduino

0 A0

1 A1

2 A2

3 A3
Finally, hardware is done. This is how your project may look
like:
After uploading the code onto the Arduino Uno, your 4x4x4 LED
Cube is ready!
 More On

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