$11 LED Cube 4x4x4 Kit

erco

Nothing fancy, but a cheap kit for anyone who wanted to make one but was too lazy to start collecting parts. Appears to flash red white and blue colors, all preprogramed and not (easily) reprogrammable. Mainly an exercise in soldering and patience. $11.06 with shipping. I just gave an offer of $9 which would be $10 even with shipping, will advise if they bite. Might be a good gift for a teenager who needs to get lured into the dark side of electronics.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-LED-LightSquared-4x4x4-2-5-7MM-LED-Cube-White-LED-Blue-Ray-DIY-Kit-Arduin-/371125840958?tfrom=131247902933

Or for the more ambitious, an 8x8x8 monochrome cube for $27 from our friend Wanda at icstation:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-LED-LightSquared-DIY-Kit-8x8x8-3mm-LED-Cube-White-LED-Blue-Red-Ray-/121371840404?tfrom=131247902933

localroger

The build guide for that 8x8x8 cube is hilarious.

erco

localroger wrote: »

The build guide for that 8x8x8 cube is hilarious.

Have to check that out. I wonder how many hours that takes first timers to build. And of course it is never perfect. For some people, the build quality will improve as they go along (experience). Others will start carefully with perfection in mind, but get bored with the tedium of and "just slam it together and finish it" (patience).

erco

That first seller didn't budge much on price, but here's the same kit from another seller for $10.06 OBO. I ordered one. Ttailspin? Upgrade from your 3x3x3?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/390923873098

Ttailspin

That is an upgrade! and a great price too, but, I am glad I'm not that bored right now, Cuz that's a lot of LEDs..

erco

Ttailspin wrote: »

Cuz that's a lot of LEDs..

Don't you fret none about a little soldering mistake. As granny said, "If it was perfect, you couldn't tell it was homemade."

mindrobots

Wow! For $16, you can get and 8x8 LED cube! What a great gift for someone you want to drive crazy!!

That's only 1536 (or so) of your finest solder connections on display!!

RobotWorkshop

erco wrote: »

That first seller didn't budge much on price, but here's the same kit from another seller for $10.06 OBO. I ordered one. Ttailspin? Upgrade from your 3x3x3?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/390923873098

FYI there are a couple variations of this kit. The $10 one comes with diffused blue LEDs with two pins. There are no instructions for this particular kit. The other version has a two color blue/red LED with three pins. This is what the pictures and instructions are for although those are lacking quite a few details. There is enough with the pictures for someone to complete it however.

I ended up getting one of the $10 kits with the two pin LED's along with the plastic case. The vertical spacing is a bit different than you would expect if you want it to fit the case properly. I took my best educated guess and went ahead and built it. Just ignore the R+ connections since those aren't used. The only issue I had was that one LED was bad. Of course it was one in the middle! It ended up not being to hard to swap out and luckily they did send a few extra LEDs with the kit. The thing is working great now. A great deal overall. I've attached some pictures of the finished build since it will help anyone else who wants to build one.

Robert

One mod that I made was to leave off the four LED's on the bottom facing down. Those just randomly cycle through colors and I will save those for another project since I like the cube better without these. Now that I've built this one I may try making another 4x4x4 cube from scratch using the Propeller.