Electric Light Party - The Step-by-Step Guide to Building a LED Cube

ELECTRIC LIGHT PARTY

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1. Create a 4 by 4 matrix template with 20mm gaps between 5mm holes. You may use wood or plain board for the template.

2. Place 4 pieces of LEDs in a row and tilt each LED at 45 degree angle diagonally.

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Cut away the excessive portion of cathode pin

3. Bend the cathode pin of each LED so as to overlap the next LED’s cathode pin. Do not bend or cut away the cathode pin of last LED, for now.

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4. Solder all the cathode pins to join four LEDs in a row.

5. Cut away the excessive portion of cathode pin at the last LED. 6. Repeat step 2 to 5 for another three more rows of LEDs.

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7. Places the four rows of LEDs you had soldered earlier according to the picture on the right.

8. Bend the cathode pin of the last LED towards the next row of LEDs. Do not bend or cut away the last LED’s cathode pin, for now.

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9. Solder the cathode pins to join them together.

10. To reinforce the structure of the LEDs, use a bare single core wire to join the four LEDs of opposite side together as shown in the picture on the right.

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Uses single core wire to join 4 LEDs

HT T P : / / FA C E B O O K . C O M / E CPROJE CT S

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11. Now, you have already connected all LED’s cathodes pins. You still need to find a way to connect all the LED’s anode pins from one level to another.

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12. Bend the anode pin away from its cathode pin as shown in the picture on the right.

Do not solder them together!

Anode pin

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13. Leave 3~4 mm space before you bend the anode pin 90 degree upright. !"#"$"%%"

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14. This picture shows the close up look at the bending direction of the anode pins of all LEDs in one level.

15. Repeat step 13 for another two levels of LEDs.

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16. Prepare a few strips of plastic or perspex with the width of 20mm.

It will be used as a spacer between the two levels of LEDs.

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17. Place the level 1 of LEDs on the matrix template and stack the level 2 of LEDs on top of the two strips of Perspex (or plastic).

18. Align and straighten the anode pins of each column of LEDs nicely and solder them together. &'()*+",-*"./')*" 01/"'2",3'"4567 " ,'8*,-*+ " ELE

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19. After completed soldering all columns of LEDs in level 1 & 2.

Place the strip of plastic on top of level2, and stack the level 3 of LEDs on top of the strip of plastic.

20. Align and straighten the anode pins of each column of LEDs in level 2 & 3, solder them together.

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21. The anode pins of the 3 LEDs in individual column are a common terminal. So, it has a total of 16 common anode terminals to be connected to Arduino I/O ports.

he 22. Once you completed soldering all columns of anode pins for 3 levels of LEDs. You have done the structure of the LED cube.

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` 23. This picture shows a completed structure of 3x3 LED cube and 4x4 LED cube.

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24. The final step is to connect the common cathode pin of each level of LEDs to its respective transistor driver.

25. As shown in the picture, uses a single core wire to connect from the common cathode pin of level 1 to the base terminal of transistor 1.

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26. Repeat step 24 for the other three levels.

27. Now, the LED cube is ready to be connected to Arduino board.

28. A total of 20 I/O ports are required. (16 ports for 16 columns of LED, and 4 ports are reserve for 4 transistor driver)