We're building a 9x9x9 LED cube, pics here 9x9x9 LED cube - LEDs and Multiplexing - Arduino Forum
It's driven by 12 shift registers on the anodes, and 2 more shift registers driving transistors for the cathodes.
(12 shift registers were used so the board could have other uses as well, 11 just seemed disorderly).
I have the multiplexing working, just a simple scheme for now with an array of the same 12 bytes that are sent to each layer every 3mS, and changing layers once a second to make sure all LEDs are working.
I'm working on an update to have 12 bytes for every layer, easy enough to add in, but not needed yet for checking out the cube electrical connections as it is constructed (6th layer was added & checked out today).
I currently have the 12 bytes just mapped "sequentially" if you will to the 81 LEDs, see the top part of the chart below.
1st number is the byte, 2nd is a bit in the byte.
I am thinking perhaps a better arrangement would be the 2nd arrangement; 9 bytes arranged more orderly, and a 10 byte across the "back" of the cube and the final LED driven by 1 bit of the 10th byte.
Any thoughts on better ways these might be mapped/connected to allow manipulations such as:
lighting any face and moving it across the cube,
or having a line or plane that could be rotated around the center,
or moving up a middle column and then exploding across the top & down the sides, etc?
