I wanted a nice 8 * 8 * 8 RGB LED cube. I have looked at ebay and they cost around £100! So I decided to make my own.
I know that the human eye can only see things that are relatively slow, I saw a helpful video about it, and decided that I would control them layer by layer with a delay less than 1 (microseconds).This gives us 64 LEDs to control (88 ) and we need 192 inputs (643) because they are RGB LEDs.
So, my problem is that I cannot control that amount of leds with an arduino, so how can I?
Thank you
sorry if I got anything wrong, I am still new to arduino
also I was wondering where I could get around about 500 RGB LEDs for cheap and what size I should get them. 5mm is pretty cheap, but is it too small? also should I get them diffused or clear ,whats the difference?
This might be much easier (and vastly brighter) if you used "NeoPixels" aka WS2812 LEDs, presumably in one of the pre-assembled forms.
I think you meant a delay less than 1 millisecond. The NeoPixels make this pretty much irrelevant as there is no requirement for them to be continuously multiplexed.
I figure WS2812 devices on eBay at about three or four for a (US) dollar mounted, or ten for a dollar for the "bare" chips so if you put the work in, it could be worthwhile.
Note that you need a serious power supply!
A limitation is that these have less than 180° visibility. Larger ones with diffusers (look for WS2811 also) have somewhat more visibility. I suppose a really big cube would not be all that bad if cheap enough.