Charliecube 4x4x4 tri-color LED Cube

[Chuckt]

I'm thinking of making one of these 4x4x4 LED Cubes because it is cheaper than buying one.

Charliecube is a 4x4x4 tri-color LED Cube by Asher Glick:

http://aglick.com/charliecube.html

I'm looking for the right RGB Leds as I have none.

I see several Ebay offers:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x-5mm-RGB-LE ... 256a91b0c9

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x-Bright-RGB ... 336fbe7c06

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x-5mm-RGB-LE ... 2317b45afc

These are 4000 MCD which might be really really bright or too bright:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-pcs-5mm-RGB ... 4cfc58dc75

I'm even open to Mouser or Digikey orders if they are cheaper.

Any help making sure I get the correct parts would be appreciated.

[brad]

That is one of the best write-ups I have seen on any projects. Very nicely done.

[bitfogav]

The 4000 MCD Leds would probably be too bright, by the looks of it they use Common Cathode LEDs so make sure they are Common Cathode.

ledtype1.jpg (33.97 KiB) Viewed 10655 times

So these should be the right ones:
Common Cathode RGB

[Chuckt]

Thank you. I bought a pack of 100 RGB Leds. Hopefully a majority of them will work. I'm not sure if I'm going to use my Arduino or buy an Atmel 328 and FTDI cable. Maybe in the future I can build a larger cube.

I'm trying to figure out what kind of wire I should get that will stand upright from the circuit board that I can mount the LEDs on.

I don't know when I will finish this project.

[brad]

When I get a pack of LED's, I test them with a cr2025 / cr2032 battery. These batteries have a pretty high internal resistance so you don't need a series resistor to test them with. It's a quick and easy way to test a bag of LED's

[Chuckt]

Thank you. I tested the LEDs in my LOL shield (a separate project) and they all worked. I just have to find the time to solder all of the LEDs and test the LEDs for my cube.

I found this large cube project on Hackaday and they use 16 guage pre-tinned copper wire. The details found here were holding me up because I was unsure how to do it and I haven't gotten around to it but they managed to make the wire straight through stretching the wire:

Construction:
http://allsparkcube.com/wordpress/?page_id=253

I have more figuring and building to do.

I won't build one as large:

[brad]

Wow, 16 x 16 x 16 = 4,096 LED's, and since they are RGB they have four legs each so 4,096 x 4 = 16,384 solder joints!