Design and Construction of an 8×8×8 RGB LED Cube

Abstract

The study presents the design and construction of an *x8X8 RGB (Red-Green-Blue) LED (Light Emitting Diode) cube. The entire hardware structure uses 512 RGB LEDs connected three-dimensionally that displays the spectrogram animation of a music file. Each LED is controlled by a control circuit comprising a microcontroller for the lighting while the animated spectrogram is done with a second microcontroller. The circuit design and simulation were achieved with the Proteus software and constructed on a PCB (printed circuit board) whereas the PIC microcontroller used was programmed with a Mikro C compiler. The program applies the persistence of vision technique at a refresh rate of 250 Hz which lights a horizontal plane at a time. The plane is multiplexed to the driver circuits connected to the microcontroller. Finally, a 3D animation of the LED cube was achieved at a fast refresh rate showing different patterns and shapes.