LED Cube

987654aB984R 2026-10-13 23:42:11 Category: Makers & Education Spaces View

Hi makers!

As you can see in the title, we have a PCB with LEDs, many LEDs, it's a 4x4 LEDs cube. I've been planning to build such a dynamic ornament for a long time, the first step I took was designing this PCB. I was a bit nervous because I designed a PCB with thin, closely spaced traces, and—as you can see—the board has quite a few cutouts, but JLCPCB did a pretty good job.

Totaling 64 5mm LEDs, the colors are your choice, distributed in a 4x4 matrix format (so 16 LEDs per layer, 2cm distance between LEDs) on 4 layers, it's a normal-sized cube, not very complex but which can be easily controlled using a board of your choice (Arduino, Rapsberry Pi, ESP32 and so on). I have blue LEDs, and I opted for blue color PCBs; we have the electronic diagram available, and on the PCB are noted the points where the fixing and interconnection elements (1mm wire diameter) of the layers will be soldered.

If you follow the circuit, you will easily figure out where the anodes and cathodes are placed on the PCB.

Components used:

Mostly the necessary things used are:

• 64x LEDs, either 3mm or 5mm, the color is your choice;

• 16x 220Ω resistors [TH];

• 2x 2N2222 transistors;

• 4x 10kΩ resistors;

• microcontroller board (e.g. ATMega);

• PCB of course;

• some male/female pin headers;

• 1mm copper rod;

• quite a bit of manual work...and patience.