Led cube with Arduino Mega and "qube5-editor"

Other Hardware LEDs and Multiplexing
1

hi there,
i have been looking for an easy to make 5x5x5 led-cube,
now i have found this video on youtube:

in this video you can see the arduino mega connected with the led cube,
but i have no idea what connector needs to go to a chip/led/resistor or npn/pnp-transistor...

the only thing he say is that he used:

  • Arduino Mega (to directly control the 25 columns)
  • 125 blue 1000mcd 5mm diffuse leds
  • ULN2803 (to control the 5 layers)
    It also contains an PC-based cube editor based on the Qube5-Editor to edit and control the cube.

now i have download the qube5-editor, but it can't "find" my arduino mega.
i have looked up on the the qube5-editors web page, and i discovered that the editor is normaly mode for an diffrend kind of chip.

my questions:

  • dus someone know how to wire the connections
  • dus someone know how the qube5-editer can "find" my arduino mega
  • or dus someone know an easy to build and easy to programm kind of an 5x5x5 led cube.

i want to make 1 for a family as a "thank you" becouse they have change'd my live,
so they are verry special for me, and that is why i want to give them a special gift...

hope someone could help me with it.
(i know how to solder, what resisters/transisters/leds/microchips are, and i know a littlebit of programming.)

2

I've just built a 4x4x4 cube recently, the way I did it was 16 columns, and 4 rows, which required 20 pins. A 5x5x5 cube could be made with 25 columns, and 5 rows, requiring 30 pins, but thats too many, so multiplexing wont be enough to do what you want.

You could charlieplex the cube, which would reduce the number of pins enough to work, or you could use some shift registers or LED drivers to get the pin count low enough.

charlieplexing wont require more parts, but it will make it a bit more complex, and difficult to build.

When i upgraded my cube, I added 2 shift registers (parts cost less than a buck), and now Im using about 1/2 as many pins.