Hi guys. i'm total new to arduino and microcontroller. i just started to learn abaout 1 mount ago. my first project is to creating 8x8x8 led cube. And i alrady finish it. now i will starting to build another led cube with 16x16x16 size. but unfortunately i have no refference to build more than 8x8x8 size. i use refference from instructable on building 8x8x8 led cube before. Anyone can give me refference how to make it?
Hello,
Not many people have created a 16x16x16 cube. That is 4,000 leds!
What design did you use for 8x8x8? Perhaps that can be extended.
Paul
PaulRB:
Hello,Not many people have created a 16x16x16 cube. That is 4,000 leds!
What design did you use for 8x8x8? Perhaps that can be extended.
Paul
Thanks Paul
i use arduino to control 74HC138 IC as bus to control 8 pieces of 74HC574 ic that connected to 8 LEDs each. What i'm thinking right now is maybe i can change 8 IO flipflop IC (74HC574) to 16 IO flipflop IC. And also change 8 IO bus IC (74hc138) to 16 io IC as bus. But my problem is my arduino uno dont have enought IO port to control 16 (total 16 arduino's ports used) IO flipflop and 16 IO bus ic (total 4 arduino's ports used). Can i extend more?
16 IO, use 2 daisy chained shift registers. Use SPI.transfer( ) to shift data into them.
I would consider using 32 x tpic6c595 high-current shift registers to sink current from the 256 columns. Plus 2 more tpic to drive 16 x p-channel mosfet to switch the layers. As Crossroads says, use Arduino SPI hardware to load data to all 34 chips. Only 3 Arduino pins required because all 34 chips can be daisy-chained. Some line buffers may be required for the clock & latch lines which go to all 34 chips in parallel.
With a 1:16 multiplex ratio, you will need to achieve a reasonably good average current through the leds to keep them bright. To do that, you may need to exceed the max continuous current of the leds, which should be ok if you can make the pulses short (ideally 0.1ms).
PaulRB:
With a 1:16 multiplex ratio, you will need to boost the instantaneous current to the leds to keep them bright. You may need to exceed the max continuous current of the leds, which should be ok if you can make the pulses short (ideally 0.1ms).
Did you mean to say the maximum pulsed current of the LEDs? It is pretty much a "given" that you will be exceeding the instantaneous current when you multiplex. Just as long as it does not happen to crash ...
Paul__B:
Did you mean to say the maximum pulsed current of the LEDs?
Thanks Paul, good spot. I have changed my post to say "average".
And you are quite right to point out the danger in doing that. An incorrect sketch could burn the leds. So a safer approach would be to prototype using higher value series resistors, so the max continuous current of the leds is not exceeded. Later, when the code is well tested, reduce the value of the series resistors to increase the brightness.