Check out what this guy has done: http://www.jamesclar.com His 3D Display Cube is simply amazing work.
WTB, thats pretty awsome, if only i hadnt forgot everything they taught me in electronics classes Proph.
Still loving teh l33t website, and the LED stuff r0xors as well...now where did I put that l33t-diet book... <A88>
Hi, I don't want to start a new thread for this, but maybe it belongs more in electronics.. I'll just start here and see what the response is. I really like the 3D Display Cube V3. And I would like to build one.. since soldering is something I can do here at my studio at school, and I have some time available to do this every day.. and leds come 'pretty' cheap. But the one he made has alot of special functions. So the electronics part seems to be very hard. But could some electronic wizard explain me how he controls the leds differently? they seem to be built up eachother, so I don't understand how he did it. I would be satisfied with something working that acts a bit like a volume meter. but then only with a whole level... like the first movie. I know there are tons of little kits to built a little led array (of about 10 leds) to display volume, so that should be easy to expand to a bigger amount of leds... but it would still not give the effect that he has created. Any help on that? PS: Is it illegal to create something like that for myself? (since its patented). I don't think so, since I'm not producing it, or selling it, and its not exactly the same (by a long shot). thanks L
I tried building something similar last year at school only I never ended up following it through to completion. Essentially what you do is assign coordinates to each LED in a computer program. For this example I'll use the axis X Y and Z; you use a computer and a home-built logic circuit to apply voltage to different LEDs, ie if X1Y1Z1 would the LED in far far right, bottom level, closest row; X1Y1Z2 would be the LED in far far right, bottom level, second closest closest row. hope that makes sense, for its quite hard to explain.
i very tempted to try build a version of the baby cube, only with bloo leds by the looks of it hes applying a voltage to the column the led is in and grounding the particular layer to complete the circuit, with all leds in parallel edit: html version - "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" i think it might have been bit-teched
No it dosn't make any sense at all.. they are leds... - and +... I can get how he can make it that you can light up a complete layer at once... but thats just simplyfing it.. but he can control each leds.. I understand that you need to give them coordinates.. and I know how to give them. but I don't have the slightest idea how you give power to just one led... its seems they are just stacked.. if you would want to use coordenates; then you would need at least 1001 wires... not? Please explain in more detail thanks L
let x be horiz front-back let z be horiz left-right let y be vertical of course you don't just wire them all together, you have to wire them in a way that each LED only relies on 2 inputs, not 3. If you look closely at his wiring you'll see that each LED only relies on 2 inputs. upon yet further inspection it appears (in his video) that he can only control rows of LEDs, not single LEDs. to do this you could just make a "baby cube" but add a their dimension to it, but have the entire 3rd dimension directly mimic the front "face." ie have entire rows set to "high" if the front LED is set to "high." this would give the effect of 3 dimensions yet only really be 2.
I am not sure as I am still learning about multiplexers, but couldn't you build one of those arrays with just 4 16 segment muliplexers? Have two controll the x, and z axi (axises?) and have two others controll the y axis? You would still have tons of short wires going to the led, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a few PCB. As to how he made that particular cube... I haven't a clue.
Hi thanks for your reply, and explaining this to me. I think I understand now. It mostly depends on the way of soldering them all toghether! Must be pretty difficult to figure that out. And about what you sed abuot the cube being 2D and not 3D; Well I thought about aswell when I saw the first movie. But when u look at the second/third you see that there is more to it.. he can actually program each individual led. but they probably act as a line because of the audio input signal. Ok, So I got this down. I would be satisfied with it, if it would be a 2d 'cube'. only 2 dimensions I can controll.. so its always ' line '. I know there are lots of kits to display volume, in 1D.. So I could easily extend this into a 3d cube, but then I would still have only 1D of options. Anybody know where I could buy a kit, that will allow a 2D output from and audio signal? (something like the first movie). thanks L
you could do it using a microcontroller, if u could find a microcontroller with enough outputs anyway.... actually u could use seperate microcontrollers for each row, that way only needing 10 outputs each.... then 1 other microcontroller to coordinate it... confusing..... u can probably tell im studying microcontrollers at uni at the moment
The web site says that "Each LED acts as one spatial pixel and can be refreshed at a rate of over 60 fps creating a low resolution 3D TV" That means to me that each LED can be controlled independently and not in a row or plane. So how is each LED controlled separately without a thousand wires? Look at the V1 cube and see that each "plane" has a separate cable (IDE I think) and a separate controller on the floor. Lots of wire! Also, in the second movie, the airplane in the middle of the cube is made up of single LEDs not an entire row or column. I Goggled the cube for better pictures, but only fond the basic ones from his web site. I am still perplexed as o how this is wired. BTW is searched the US patent stie extensivley and there is NO reference of this cube or of James Clar. Was hoping for a technical document.
hi jgrade, yeah, I thought the same as you did. But I think he is using some complex thingy's.. and I don't think he is going to reveal the method he is using to controll the 1000 different leds. I will be happy if I can controll 100 different lines, and make them react as the first movie to music. L
That doesn't seem to be that difficult. Bassically you want to build a spectrum analyzer like this except with an array of LEDs. I choose that one because it's cheap and already uses LEDs and not a flourescent display. I agree though that it needs to be blue not red. Most have different settings that let you choose form peak level hold to inverted display. My electronic skills are limited to hacking an existing product and adding a little to it (I can solder and follow a schematic but not design circuits). The display in the first movie is much more than an array of LEDs bouncing to the music. If you watch closely, the "level" moves from column 1 to column 10 while colums 1 get a new "level". The display is moving in 2 dimensions not just one like an analyzer would produce. To reporduce this effect, you only need a single VU meter and be able to hold the peak and then move it backard form column 1 to 10 while refreshing each row. I don't know how to program a PIC but I could do it in VB pretty eaisly. A few lines of code with an single array would so the trick. In my head it's simple, but I would have no idea how to start with the electronics.
