I usually don't like or dislike this kind of videos, but the work involved, the attention to details, and the end result is greater than most. And after that, you provide the code and the files to anyone that want to do the same project, for free! Double thumbs up for you and this video!
I like to have my projects open source and open hardware, so more people can enjoy these kind of things. I also like watching other peoples projects, and this is my contribution 😎
I’ve built many high performance audio amplifiers and preamplifiers, countless piwer supplies and too many projects to count over 43 years. This cube, my friend, is the ultimate end to end beautifully designed project I have laid eyes on. A real credit to you. If this was a kitset with a carefully written manual, I suspect you’d have a fair market at your disposal. Bravo!
@@MaltWhiskey it's a long shot, but we don't know unless we ask. So, that's a 'yes', right? 😜 Truly marvelous work. I'm still in awe. I suck at soldering, so that's at least one reason I wouldn't survive such a project.
can you imagine how a physics professor could use this to demonstrate all sorts of things in 3 dimensions? Can't do that on a whiteboard, you know? Amazing creation we should use to visualize in 3d for education
We Had Tech Like This At One Point, The Kuntz Who rule Today, Removed It From Society & Civilisation...🤦🏼♂️ The Very Education System You Speak Of They Control! Fml. They Don't Want Folk To Learn In A Visual Manner....Plus Devices Such As This Will "Open Eyes" To Many Lies About A Ball Earth? Much Love 💚
20 Years ago i made a 8x8x8 Blue LED Cube with two shoolfriends as a project in school. This was heavy soldering fun. I can imagine how much work a 16x16x16 Cube was! Very nice work!!!
My wife asked why one would build this. My answer: just because it can! Hell of a job but I guess it must be quite pleasing and satisfying to build something this cool and make it to this level of perfection.
YOU ARE WARRIOR . I have made the 8X8X8 simple led and i was about to die.... but this RGB16X16X16 is at least 15 times more complexe. You are crazy man ! Big kudos !!!
@@novaenricarter705that's a good point. It also makes me wonder if you could "optimize" this concept by pruning away LEDs on the innermost layers 🤔 you could potentially lessen that potential issue, and save a lot of work.
Fantastic build! You truly created a beautiful work of art, engineering, and wizardry here. The extreme attention to detail and design of the process (like the LED jig for bending the leads) is inspiring! Keep it up!
Mirrors on the two back walls would add an interesting effect. What a project! I've downloaded your git repository, thanks for sharing. I'm headed down the rabbit hole!
It would be cool if there was an animation of someone dancing inside. I don't know how quality it would look on a 16×16×16 cube due to the density and general size but it would make for an interesting proof of concept for a larger scale "hologram" box with full 3D animations
Assuming those leds can show any color, I would think it wouldnt take a lot, to write some code that could downsample a video to 16x16 pixels, and then convert the colors of the bitmap to the leds. Then as you rapidly change each led to match the video, you could rotate the coordinates for each pixel, and literally see the video rotate along for example the Y-axis. Additionally, you could convert a text message that is shown in the pixel matrix.
I love my share of doing repetitive tasks while just vibing. But preparing 4096 LEDs? AND writing drivers for it? Good lord, I wouldn't do it if someone wasnt paying me for it. You are a man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer fucking WILL.
The amount of engineering and craftsmanship that went into this far exceeded my expectations upon first opening this video. This is incredible work and I seriously hope you're proud, you've earned the right to be. You cover mechanical design including material consideration and manufacturing methods, maintenance considerations in the form of modularity and critical system ease of access, electrical PCB prototyping, power distribution and intensive quantities of soldering, C++ Programming and then the patience of developing those animations. You've earned my respect and i strive to be like you.
Now, using a leap motion or similar, track your hand and display an approximated 3D model of it inside the cube that follows your movements in real time. Or use it to interact with the cube in any way actually
Man, all the animations are so cool! Great job. I would love to see an effect where it looks like the snake from Snake where it like chases an apple around in 3D space
painstakingly soldering 4096 rgbs and building all that is not an easy feat....mind blowing just, these are the people that deserve millions of subscribers.....
Wow, congratulations, very well done! I like the perfect alignment of the LEDs, because it makes crystallographic axies visible! (You have essentially a cubic crystal). Now I would imagine to use it for visualisation of scientific models, e.g. diffusion or atomic orbitals. For the latter one could demonstrate the dynamics as well, something that has never been demonstrated. Would like to have such a cube ...
This seems like something that could be mass produced by encasing the LEDs in clear plastic and having standard connectors so you can put as many together in any configuration you want.
I’m used to seeing these being built with single-color LEDs, so I was blown away to see a multi-color led in a cube (and all the additional bends and connections)
Makes me wonder what it'd look like with reflective tint on the insides. Basically those infinity cubes/mirrors but with an addressable LED cube array.
Imagine this with high-resolution, like 500x500x500 or above, and realy small and transparent components. Imagine a game in that "screen". Awesome project, looking foward for future ones.
If anyone is wondering how you can set the colour of each individual LED: It uses "addressable" LEDs. Each LED actually has a tiny chip inside. They have four legs: power, ground, data in, data out. The data is passed from one LED to the other, the first one takes its own value and passes the data on to the next LED which takes the next value and so on. I'm not sure on specific implementation but for example the data might look like this for three LEDs using [R, G, B] values where the first LED is to be set to red, the second green and the third blue. The first LED receives: [[255, 0, 0], [0, 255, 0], [0, 0, 255]], it takes its own value [255, 0, 0] which is red, and passes the rest [[0, 255,0], [0, 0, 255]] on to the second LED etc. There will also be a brightness value but I've ignored that for simplicity.
I believe that probably, due to response times, he is not using addressable LEDs, as handling such a large quantity could create a potentially visible delay. In his case, I am more convinced that he is using the following: "In the case of 4-pin RGB LEDs without an integrated controller, a common method to control them is by using a microcontroller and shift registers. A shift register is a digital circuit that can be used to expand the number of output pins of a microcontroller. It allows you to control multiple LEDs using a serial connection."
Fusion 360, 3D printing, PCB art, PCB design, even woodworking makes an appearance! You are a polymath creator. This is hands down the absolute best version of volumetric display I've seen made. And only 1.12K subs! What kind of pixels did you use? WS2801?
Absolutely terrific. Saw this on Reddit and thought it might be a good project. However having just bought a soldering iron, maybe after I get a few more under my belt.
Thank you Dave! I’m a big fan of your channel. In the beginning i came there mostly for led related topics. But you can even make changing light bulbs or Windows topics interesting although i switched to mac years ago ;)
i wonder if you could scale this to create a massive pillar that you can put atop of buildings/skyscrapers and create those beautiful 3d hologram ads/lightshows that we see in every cyberpunk depiction
What happens if you try to use it to display a 3D head? It's low resolution obviously but I think it will still be amazing and will probably inspire others to make a higher resolution one.
This feels like the early days of holographic technology. I'm just imagining this tech with much higher led density, with smaller leds and it would be an amazing 3D display. They went from small B&W tvs to 4K flatscreens, they could do similar progress with this.
Great thinking! That would be incredible. A "high resolution" human size display. Or even just a smaller cube as presented above. It would be interesting to see a "video" being played through the cube. A tree whooshing in the wind. Or even a tabletop "zoo"
Boss, I'm gonna level with you, I didn't understand a single fucking thing in a technical sense. But sweet mother of Odin the process you took and the end result are fucking gorgeous. Stellar build
Hi Matt Thanks for sharing this challenging and wonderfull cube.Not many are talented like you. Few things please. link to leds if possible.can i use diffused instead. also what are the other pins of the leds used.is it + and -. can you share a drawing of the the wiring how it is done. pdf of schematic where does the odd out data pin go to and so with the even data out pin how many boards are required for the teensy pcb.is it just one. how are the 4 power suplies connected.each power supply powers how many blocks. the thick positive and negative how and where do they join to. part lists and links would be nice finally the code is on which page. Thanks alot ....
Hi Dominic, That are a lot of questions, but rightfully so. I took a lot of things for granted/common knowledge. To explain things better i am going to make a “easy mode” video. I wanted to have it finished already, but i wasn’t well past 2 weeks. To help you on your way for now here the answers to you questions: 1. Yes use diffused leds, they look way better. I bought them on AliExpres look for PL9823. Other addressable leds may also work as long as they don’t need a capacitor. My code can be changed from PL9823 to WS281x by changing only 1 line. 2. The wiring is in the video, i use red for + and black for -. The green is the data, these have arrows pointing along the direction. Each led has a data in and a data out (DIN/DOUT) the first signal of each channel from the microcontroller goes to DIN of the fist led and the DOUT of this led goes to DIN of the next, this for 128 leds x 32 channels. You can also see this on the jigs, i recommend you mark this as to avoid soldering mistakes. 3. The odd and even leds are the same leds, but the + and - are bended opposite. All even leds go to even layers, and odd to odd layers. So looking at a tower from the front you get 2 channels E1, O1, E2, O2. The E1 and O1 are connected DOUT->DIN all 128 leds chained together. Same for E2, O2. This you can see in the video and on the jigs (i made sure those pictures are in the video) 4. You need just 1 board with 1 teensy 4.0. But i call the base of each tower also a pcb, because it acts like it’s a printed circuit board, but it’s just 3d printed with some pins and wires. 5. Each power supply needs mains voltage, just chain these together (life and neutral) Chain the ground (this is not from the mains) of all 4 power supplies together. All grounds should be connected. You need to keep each 5V separated or you could blow something up. So each power supply only powers 4 towers with the 5V, you can’t connect the 5V to the other towers!!! To stabilize the construction you can solder the grounds together on top of the cube, but only the grounds!!!. 6. I don’t have a part list, never made on. In the video i explain what to use. The PCB you just order at JLCPCB, the assembly file specifies the components used and you get it all soldered up. I used 14 awg power wires, 0.22mm laminated copper wire, 0.20 nikkel plated wire, 0.80mm silvered copper wire. JST connectors (red) for 2 data signals, XT60 (yellow) for power, JST XH2.54 for the connectors on the PCB (you can see this KICAD if you open the design file) just use 24 ish awg for the signal wires. Dupont wires for the LCD (if you want that) I crimp everything with IWS-2820 (i love that crimper) 7. The link to my github (with all 3d print files, code, pcb design and assembly) is in the video, it is the reward for all who watched to the end. I have a lot of code on my github, but it should be on top, because it has over 200 stars (so lots of people found it 😎) The name of the repository is Mega-Cube just in case. 8. You are welcome 😉
@@MaltWhiskey thank you so much for your time and patience to reply to all my questions. Will start hunting for leds now 😊 Is it ok to keep in touch via email. Thank you once again.
@@MaltWhiskey hi, can’t seem to find email . Want to ask question regarding the connecting of the 32 channels to the driver pcb If looking at the base with the data hole on left and on front row of the front 4 pcb ( where in vid you have text “ All PCB,s completed and assembled “ ) what order are they connected to the BIT 0 to 32 . Hoping I am making sense . Cheers
What was your reason for using addressable leds? And where did you buy them ? I feel like they're more expensive Was the system and software more or less complex than if you used standard common anode/cathode leds? Of course it would have required more pins to control. More shift registers ! I'd love to know your thoughts!
Addressable leds are the new tech, so why not use them. I made a 9^3 cube with multiplexing and it is very dim compared to this one (this one can blind you 😬) multiplexing 16 layers is possible, but even less bright. The software is different, but if you know what to do, the difficulty is the same. I have source code for both cubes on github. So you can compare if you want. Another pro for smart leds is they only need beefy + and - and the signal wire can be very tiny. While common cathode need beefy + and beefy - for each color. So thats 4 thick leads vs 2 with almost invisible data. So the visibility through the cube is much better. Also the pwm routing for common anode/cathode from your led/pwm drivers is more complex, routing 16 pwm signals each led driver (maybe more, driver dependable) vs 2 with led protocol. I wouldn’t use shiftregister for a multiplexed cube, if you want to vary brightness you have to do it in code, so thats not optimal. Using a led driver like a tlc5940 will solve that for you.
IDEA... if you find LEDs where the resin coating is as clear as possible then find the matching resin you could solidify the whole matrix into a block of clear resin therefore making the led resin casings invisible and you'd only have the visual impedance of the wires and diodes. Furthermore, I was thinking if you can find a resin that had the same refractive qualities of water it would theoretically be possible to make a water electrolyte and micro canals in said resin to make the wires invisible. Then you would only see some light refraction within the matrix block itself and the individual diodes... granted all this would require some new special equipment and manufacturing processes but holy crap... with small enough diodes you could theoretically achieve a very high fidelity translucent led matrix with very little visual obstructions. it would be a quality volumetric display.
That looks amazing! It would be epic if it could create a 3D appearing image of a face that linked to an AI assistant like Gemini. It'd be like Cortana mixed with a futuristic verson of Wizard of Oz.
Now connect it to Home Automation as a visualization of your voice assistant looking like a magical wisp, pulsating with each and every word they say. Truly magical
i have seen some of these but nothing in this kind of quality holy shit that is stunning you got some nerves man keep up the good work maybe modular for diy and then sell the kit
Out of curiosity, how much would you charge if someone wanted to commission one of their own? I would imagine the parts cost isn't small but the labour would be through the roof.
I usually don't like or dislike this kind of videos, but the work involved, the attention to details, and the end result is greater than most. And after that, you provide the code and the files to anyone that want to do the same project, for free!
Double thumbs up for you and this video!
I like to have my projects open source and open hardware, so more people can enjoy these kind of things. I also like watching other peoples projects, and this is my contribution 😎
I’ve built many high performance audio amplifiers and preamplifiers, countless piwer supplies and too many projects to count over 43 years. This cube, my friend, is the ultimate end to end beautifully designed project I have laid eyes on. A real credit to you. If this was a kitset with a carefully written manual, I suspect you’d have a fair market at your disposal. Bravo!
That is amazing. People who have never soldered anything before have no idea the hours that this must have taken.
Indeed and that asking can i buy this….
@@MaltWhiskey it's a long shot, but we don't know unless we ask. So, that's a 'yes', right? 😜 Truly marvelous work. I'm still in awe. I suck at soldering, so that's at least one reason I wouldn't survive such a project.
40 hours of soldering on a 7*7*7 I guess here it’s about 80 + with a lot of preparation to be more efficient
Saw thumbnail "Ah this is cool, maybe I can make this for my living room"
Three minutes in "Never mind.."
Awesome project!
Exactly the same :)
Now run Doom on it.
What do you know about 3d games on your 2d monitors? But doom on a 3d cube, that's it.
That one is actually good
Bruh
Or bad apple
Kkkkkkkk perfect
Ba doom tss
can you imagine how a physics professor could use this to demonstrate all sorts of things in 3 dimensions? Can't do that on a whiteboard, you know? Amazing creation we should use to visualize in 3d for education
Tbh they need to do this
A VR headset could work too
I was thinking the same....!
Same thought 🤔.
We Had Tech Like This At One Point, The Kuntz Who rule Today, Removed It From Society & Civilisation...🤦🏼♂️ The Very Education System You Speak Of They Control! Fml.
They Don't Want Folk To Learn In A Visual Manner....Plus Devices Such As This Will "Open Eyes" To Many Lies About A Ball Earth?
Much Love
💚
Incredible. That must've cost a fortune in materials and the skill to bring it all together. Amazing.
How much of cost I m getting one said how much cost I'm buying that new think
@@sagarawari1340 where I live in Canada each 4 pin dip style neopixel 5mm led is about 2 dollars each. So it cost alot lol
Update. I just checked and a pack of 5 8mm neopixel leds are 15 plus tax lol
@@jstro-hobbytech it costs €0.12 per led. So €500 for all of them. These are pl9823, not neo pixels.
@@MaltWhiskey that's awesome. I forgot about those. It's 400 for 1000 of them here. They are beautiful man.
Im an Software Engineer and an Electrical Engineer, and this Video hit diffrent, mate im stunned!
You are inspiring, thank you alot!
Congrats, you're almost as smart as the average idiot!
This project will be an excellent example of patience and knowledge together... For us and the future generation....
Agreed
This would have taken so long, amazing work.
yeah
took me forever to just do a 8x8
Well he used his lockdown time wisely.
As someone who has built 2 4x4 LED cubes before (and struggled a lot) I can appreciate just how monumentally impressive this is. Good job.
Thanks, time to upscale now? I promise with my jigs it will be easy 😁
20 Years ago i made a 8x8x8 Blue LED Cube with two shoolfriends as a project in school. This was heavy soldering fun. I can imagine how much work a 16x16x16 Cube was! Very nice work!!!
My wife asked why one would build this. My answer: just because it can! Hell of a job but I guess it must be quite pleasing and satisfying to build something this cool and make it to this level of perfection.
YOU ARE WARRIOR . I have made the 8X8X8 simple led and i was about to die.... but this RGB16X16X16 is at least 15 times more complexe. You are crazy man ! Big kudos !!!
🤪🤪😂🤣
Imagine smaller LED's, more tightly grouped into something like 640x640x640 you could have a decent definition volumetric display!
imagine preparing 262,144,000 individual LEDs by hand 😂
True but at that scale they may overlap and make any real depth unachievable. I wonder the limit on pixels before any depth loss
Ye lemme get 300 million leds
The problem is that it scales to the power of 3 instead of 2, so that’s already 100x more pixels than 4k
@@novaenricarter705that's a good point. It also makes me wonder if you could "optimize" this concept by pruning away LEDs on the innermost layers 🤔 you could potentially lessen that potential issue, and save a lot of work.
I'm an amateur maker and this is the ultimate build. You are an inspiration. I watch this video at least once a month.
Fantastic build! You truly created a beautiful work of art, engineering, and wizardry here. The extreme attention to detail and design of the process (like the LED jig for bending the leads) is inspiring! Keep it up!
Mirrors on the two back walls would add an interesting effect. What a project! I've downloaded your git repository, thanks for sharing. I'm headed down the rabbit hole!
It would be cool if there was an animation of someone dancing inside. I don't know how quality it would look on a 16×16×16 cube due to the density and general size but it would make for an interesting proof of concept for a larger scale "hologram" box with full 3D animations
Perhaps some people may see this as just technology, but it's indisputably much more than that... this is ART!
After seeing how much work went into a different project of 8x8x8 led cube.
For 16x16x16...I just click Subscribe, no questions asked.
Thanks, 8x8x8 is nothing to sneeze at 👍🏻
Assuming those leds can show any color, I would think it wouldnt take a lot, to write some code that could downsample a video to 16x16 pixels, and then convert the colors of the bitmap to the leds. Then as you rapidly change each led to match the video, you could rotate the coordinates for each pixel, and literally see the video rotate along for example the Y-axis. Additionally, you could convert a text message that is shown in the pixel matrix.
I love my share of doing repetitive tasks while just vibing. But preparing 4096 LEDs? AND writing drivers for it? Good lord, I wouldn't do it if someone wasnt paying me for it. You are a man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer fucking WILL.
The amount of engineering and craftsmanship that went into this far exceeded my expectations upon first opening this video. This is incredible work and I seriously hope you're proud, you've earned the right to be.
You cover mechanical design including material consideration and manufacturing methods, maintenance considerations in the form of modularity and critical system ease of access, electrical PCB prototyping, power distribution and intensive quantities of soldering, C++ Programming and then the patience of developing those animations.
You've earned my respect and i strive to be like you.
That is awesome. Sales would be insane if this was mass produced. Take my money
Now, using a leap motion or similar, track your hand and display an approximated 3D model of it inside the cube that follows your movements in real time. Or use it to interact with the cube in any way actually
Man, all the animations are so cool! Great job. I would love to see an effect where it looks like the snake from Snake where it like chases an apple around in 3D space
painstakingly soldering 4096 rgbs and building all that is not an easy feat....mind blowing just, these are the people that deserve millions of subscribers.....
Wow, congratulations, very well done! I like the perfect alignment of the LEDs, because it makes crystallographic axies visible! (You have essentially a cubic crystal). Now I would imagine to use it for visualisation of scientific models, e.g. diffusion or atomic orbitals. For the latter one could demonstrate the dynamics as well, something that has never been demonstrated. Would like to have such a cube ...
Much respect. The time and effort into making this is incredible.
This seems like something that could be mass produced by encasing the LEDs in clear plastic and having standard connectors so you can put as many together in any configuration you want.
I’m used to seeing these being built with single-color LEDs, so I was blown away to see a multi-color led in a cube (and all the additional bends and connections)
Makes me wonder what it'd look like with reflective tint on the insides. Basically those infinity cubes/mirrors but with an addressable LED cube array.
That's just so ******* sick. If you made a kit with everything included plus instructions, I'd buy one and assemble it.
Imagine millions of mini leds in this arrangement, that should make a good 3D display
I completely agree, but a 128³ display would already be over 2 million LEDs 😭 the numbers get out of hand so quickly
@@eel12333Not to mention the power requirements 🤣
This is by far the coolest one of all these 3D LED cubes that I've seen.
Imagine this with high-resolution, like 500x500x500 or above, and realy small and transparent components. Imagine a game in that "screen". Awesome project, looking foward for future ones.
this thing already uses 4kW when all white O.O
This and an infinity mirror would be SOOO cool
This is absolutely amazing, I'm not sure I have the skills to make this myself... But nothings stopping me from trying.
Do it! Just watch out for cats.
This is the most spectacular LED cube I've ever seen. 10/10 for the design, build and software demos! Amazing.
Name your price.
You said it. I want a house made of this thing.
@@thetruthexperiment😂😂🎉
@@sonus289ya ' but I'm calling for your cars extended warranty sir '
$69
Awesome and trippy, want to jam on some Pink Floyd
I started a 5X5x5 single color cube 3 years ago, still not finished lmao and you did a 16x16x16 RGB and completed it!
If anyone is wondering how you can set the colour of each individual LED:
It uses "addressable" LEDs. Each LED actually has a tiny chip inside. They have four legs: power, ground, data in, data out. The data is passed from one LED to the other, the first one takes its own value and passes the data on to the next LED which takes the next value and so on. I'm not sure on specific implementation but for example the data might look like this for three LEDs using [R, G, B] values where the first LED is to be set to red, the second green and the third blue. The first LED receives: [[255, 0, 0], [0, 255, 0], [0, 0, 255]], it takes its own value [255, 0, 0] which is red, and passes the rest [[0, 255,0], [0, 0, 255]] on to the second LED etc. There will also be a brightness value but I've ignored that for simplicity.
I believe that probably, due to response times, he is not using addressable LEDs, as handling such a large quantity could create a potentially visible delay. In his case, I am more convinced that he is using the following:
"In the case of 4-pin RGB LEDs without an integrated controller, a common method to control them is by using a microcontroller and shift registers. A shift register is a digital circuit that can be used to expand the number of output pins of a microcontroller. It allows you to control multiple LEDs using a serial connection."
that is an extremely beautiful thing. not just in the obvious way of what it can do in the end, but in the construction as well
Want to see an animation of the solar system, or the earth with the moon orbitating around. Should be awesome!
Great job ! Very impressive !
Fusion 360, 3D printing, PCB art, PCB design, even woodworking makes an appearance! You are a polymath creator. This is hands down the absolute best version of volumetric display I've seen made. And only 1.12K subs! What kind of pixels did you use? WS2801?
PL9823 LEDs. You can see it when he looks at the code.
Absolutely terrific. Saw this on Reddit and thought it might be a good project. However having just bought a soldering iron, maybe after I get a few more under my belt.
It's not a bad soldering project. Just a lot 😂
Cat vs 4096 LEDs. What could possibly go wrong? Fabulous project. Beautifully crafted together. Respect.
You could put one way mirrors on earch side to create a super cool infinity mirror effect in 3 dimensions
As an LED programmer myself, color me impressed!
I see what you did there
Thank you Dave!
I’m a big fan of your channel. In the beginning i came there mostly for led related topics. But you can even make changing light bulbs or Windows topics interesting although i switched to mac years ago ;)
Absolutely awesome. I will build this as a birthday gift for my daughter. Thanx for sharing! Thumbs up!!
The wiring was as much a work of art as the output. Great work man. I'd like to see a rotating galaxy with a few random super nova's.
i wonder if you could scale this to create a massive pillar that you can put atop of buildings/skyscrapers and create those beautiful 3d hologram ads/lightshows that we see in every cyberpunk depiction
What happens if you try to use it to display a 3D head? It's low resolution obviously but I think it will still be amazing and will probably inspire others to make a higher resolution one.
One of the, BEST, videos on UA-cam. Takes me back when content was actually good and inspiring.
Wow.
Absolutely amazing! I made a 3x3x3 and it took me forever :) What you have done is a work of art and an incredible achievement.
This is one of the coolest things I've seen.
This feels like the early days of holographic technology. I'm just imagining this tech with much higher led density, with smaller leds and it would be an amazing 3D display. They went from small B&W tvs to 4K flatscreens, they could do similar progress with this.
Great thinking! That would be incredible. A "high resolution" human size display. Or even just a smaller cube as presented above. It would be interesting to see a "video" being played through the cube. A tree whooshing in the wind. Or even a tabletop "zoo"
You should put some optional mirrored surfaces on the sides, top and bottom to give it an infinite effect. Nice job.
The fireworks blew my mind. Amazing work.
I wonder how this would look if the bottom was mirrored and the glass had that one way films on it, giving it that infinity look.
I am speechless. Astonishing.
Boss, I'm gonna level with you, I didn't understand a single fucking thing in a technical sense. But sweet mother of Odin the process you took and the end result are fucking gorgeous. Stellar build
Thanks 😂 Sköll 🍻
I admire your patience and tenacity. And omfg, that fireworks effect is amazing! Good job!
Hi Matt
Thanks for sharing this challenging and wonderfull cube.Not many are talented like you.
Few things please.
link to leds if possible.can i use diffused instead.
also what are the other pins of the leds used.is it + and -.
can you share a drawing of the the wiring how it is done.
pdf of schematic
where does the odd out data pin go to and so with the even data out pin
how many boards are required for the teensy pcb.is it just one.
how are the 4 power suplies connected.each power supply powers how many blocks.
the thick positive and negative how and where do they join to.
part lists and links would be nice
finally the code is on which page.
Thanks alot ....
Hi Dominic,
That are a lot of questions, but rightfully so. I took a lot of things for granted/common knowledge. To explain things better i am going to make a “easy mode” video. I wanted to have it finished already, but i wasn’t well past 2 weeks. To help you on your way for now here the answers to you questions:
1. Yes use diffused leds, they look way better. I bought them on AliExpres look for PL9823. Other addressable leds may also work as long as they don’t need a capacitor. My code can be changed from PL9823 to WS281x by changing only 1 line.
2. The wiring is in the video, i use red for + and black for -. The green is the data, these have arrows pointing along the direction. Each led has a data in and a data out (DIN/DOUT) the first signal of each channel from the microcontroller goes to DIN of the fist led and the DOUT of this led goes to DIN of the next, this for 128 leds x 32 channels. You can also see this on the jigs, i recommend you mark this as to avoid soldering mistakes.
3. The odd and even leds are the same leds, but the + and - are bended opposite. All even leds go to even layers, and odd to odd layers. So looking at a tower from the front you get 2 channels E1, O1, E2, O2. The E1 and O1 are connected DOUT->DIN all 128 leds chained together. Same for E2, O2. This you can see in the video and on the jigs (i made sure those pictures are in the video)
4. You need just 1 board with 1 teensy 4.0. But i call the base of each tower also a pcb, because it acts like it’s a printed circuit board, but it’s just 3d printed with some pins and wires.
5. Each power supply needs mains voltage, just chain these together (life and neutral) Chain the ground (this is not from the mains) of all 4 power supplies together. All grounds should be connected. You need to keep each 5V separated or you could blow something up. So each power supply only powers 4 towers with the 5V, you can’t connect the 5V to the other towers!!! To stabilize the construction you can solder the grounds together on top of the cube, but only the grounds!!!.
6. I don’t have a part list, never made on. In the video i explain what to use. The PCB you just order at JLCPCB, the assembly file specifies the components used and you get it all soldered up. I used 14 awg power wires, 0.22mm laminated copper wire, 0.20 nikkel plated wire, 0.80mm silvered copper wire. JST connectors (red) for 2 data signals, XT60 (yellow) for power, JST XH2.54 for the connectors on the PCB (you can see this KICAD if you open the design file) just use 24 ish awg for the signal wires. Dupont wires for the LCD (if you want that) I crimp everything with IWS-2820 (i love that crimper)
7. The link to my github (with all 3d print files, code, pcb design and assembly) is in the video, it is the reward for all who watched to the end. I have a lot of code on my github, but it should be on top, because it has over 200 stars (so lots of people found it 😎) The name of the repository is Mega-Cube just in case.
8. You are welcome 😉
@@MaltWhiskey thank you so much for your time and patience to reply to all my questions.
Will start hunting for leds now 😊
Is it ok to keep in touch via email.
Thank you once again.
@@domdomgin I have added my email address to my channel info (hopefully I won't get spammed now) Let me know your progress 😎
@@MaltWhiskey great work and thank you for sharing your knowledge. I hope to try and make one myself one day.
@@MaltWhiskey hi, can’t seem to find email . Want to ask question regarding the connecting of the 32 channels to the driver pcb
If looking at the base with the data hole on left and on front row of the front 4 pcb ( where in vid you have text “ All PCB,s completed and assembled “ ) what order are they connected to the BIT 0 to 32 . Hoping I am making sense . Cheers
What was your reason for using addressable leds? And where did you buy them ? I feel like they're more expensive
Was the system and software more or less complex than if you used standard common anode/cathode leds? Of course it would have required more pins to control. More shift registers !
I'd love to know your thoughts!
Addressable leds are the new tech, so why not use them. I made a 9^3 cube with multiplexing and it is very dim compared to this one (this one can blind you 😬) multiplexing 16 layers is possible, but even less bright.
The software is different, but if you know what to do, the difficulty is the same. I have source code for both cubes on github. So you can compare if you want.
Another pro for smart leds is they only need beefy + and - and the signal wire can be very tiny. While common cathode need beefy + and beefy - for each color. So thats 4 thick leads vs 2 with almost invisible data. So the visibility through the cube is much better.
Also the pwm routing for common anode/cathode from your led/pwm drivers is more complex, routing 16 pwm signals each led driver (maybe more, driver dependable) vs 2 with led protocol. I wouldn’t use shiftregister for a multiplexed cube, if you want to vary brightness you have to do it in code, so thats not optimal. Using a led driver like a tlc5940 will solve that for you.
@@MaltWhiskey I made a 4^3 cube a few years back with standard rgb leds. I see what you mean now. Thank you for sharing!
@@MaltWhiskey wheres your github
@@crayder1100 ua-cam.com/video/ciaFar8nfHc/v-deo.htmlm30s
@@MaltWhiskey please tell me you have plans to make it play snake
admire the patience for wiring up 4096 LEDs x 4 wires.....
Perfection in my eyes! Love it - I could watch the end result for hours
I lost it at the Malt Wiskey PCB label using the Walt Disney font: 12:03. Great work.
Thanks for pointing that out. I had not noticed it.
Made me laugh too! My eyes saw 'Walt Disney' then realised the 'D' wasn't right........ Ohhhhh 'Malt Wiskey'! 🤣Very clever tag name
I have printed some t-shirts with my logo and getting this reaction in real life is priceless 😂🤣
can you play 3d snake ?? on the cube
having one of those as a room lamp has to be cool
Stunning, I can't seem to get my act together enough to build a 4x4x4, building this monster is truly impressive.
I have a design for a 4x4x4 that is buildable in 6 hours. Maybe i’ll share it during summer holidays. Right now too much stuff to do 😬
@MaltWhiskey any chance on more insight on the 9x9x9?
I'd like to see a 3D rotating object displayed on it. Something like the Viper Mk.III from Elite maybe?
Apply a one-way glass coating to the outside so. This will hide all of the internal structure and just show the LEDs!
IDEA... if you find LEDs where the resin coating is as clear as possible then find the matching resin you could solidify the whole matrix into a block of clear resin therefore making the led resin casings invisible and you'd only have the visual impedance of the wires and diodes. Furthermore, I was thinking if you can find a resin that had the same refractive qualities of water it would theoretically be possible to make a water electrolyte and micro canals in said resin to make the wires invisible. Then you would only see some light refraction within the matrix block itself and the individual diodes... granted all this would require some new special equipment and manufacturing processes but holy crap... with small enough diodes you could theoretically achieve a very high fidelity translucent led matrix with very little visual obstructions. it would be a quality volumetric display.
The basic version of hologram, like in iron man movies...😂😂😂
I think it may be a good idea to put a dark tint film on the outer glass, so the inactive diodes and wiring will not be visible
That looks amazing! It would be epic if it could create a 3D appearing image of a face that linked to an AI assistant like Gemini. It'd be like Cortana mixed with a futuristic verson of Wizard of Oz.
Can’t wait for 1080p cube of this
That is impressive AF 😍
Now connect it to Home Automation as a visualization of your voice assistant looking like a magical wisp, pulsating with each and every word they say.
Truly magical
3D snake would be sickkk. Btw, how do you design the pattern animations? Do you program them 1 LED at a time?
So cool man. I wish I had the requisite skills and the imagination to do something like this!
Did everyone JUST get this recommended lmao, all the comments are fresh 💀
Looks like it X)
And again, it seems
Yes!
Yep lol
bruh ur one of the "hahaha the algorithm again" guys
Amazing. Fast-forward 10 years from now: True 3D TV. I do believe it will happen.
I mean 3D displays already exist and are sold
That cat was trying to end this man's career
i have seen some of these but nothing in this kind of quality holy shit that is stunning
you got some nerves man
keep up the good work
maybe modular for diy and then sell the kit
Need to see this inside a box of two way mirrors. An inimity cube. 😳
wow! meticulous build detail, custom drivers, fine tuning and stunning visualizations!!!
This looks like a nice project for someone with 400 spare hours on hand. Or someone with 400 spare hands and an hour.
This is the best looking LED cube I've seen, well done! What does the whole thing cost with all those LEDs?
It said about 2000$ that's too much :o
you should totally run a fluid sim inside of this
This has the spirit of demo making :) The firework effect is awesome !
This would probably be really fun on Acid
I am so in love with these fireworks. They look so pretty! Did you code them yourself too?
Thanks, yes i coded them myself. You can get the code from github, free to use however you like.
A 3D audio visualizer would be pretty sweet.
a work of art, patience and knowledge
Out of curiosity, how much would you charge if someone wanted to commission one of their own? I would imagine the parts cost isn't small but the labour would be through the roof.
I’m not sure i ever want to make a cube this big ever again 😬
A game of classic snake might be a fun in a 3d array like this
It's beautiful! Someone please make assembled ready-to-buy units.
This is phenomenal. Imagine this on a bigger scale. Well done