NeoPixel Mini Cube

Updated 30 March 2022

This mini cube is made up of six 4x4 WS2812B panels giving a total of 96 individually addressable RGB LEDs. Buried inside the cube is an ATTiny85 microcontroller powered by a 120mAh Lithium-Ion battery. It also contains a mercury switch and a couple of transistors to turn the cube on. The cube switches itself off after displaying a series of animations.

All the files needed to create this project are downloadable in the ZIP file at the end of the write-up

Parts

Video

Assembly

3D Printing

3D print the STL holder file for the panels with supports and a raft. After you clean off the support and raft, drill out the holes with a 2.5mm drill and create a thread with a 3mm tap.

 A render of the 3D Printed Part for the Neopixel Cube generated on Thingiverse

Wiring the cube

Next you need to wire up the six WS2812B panels. Start with the four side panels. I used 0.5mm tinned copper wire. Each time you complete a panel, test it on the former and re-adjust the wires if necessary to get a good fit without straining the connections and also having the screw holes lined up.

Soldering each of the 6 WS2812B panels together

Connect fine insulated wire (I used wire-wrap wire) to the VCC, DIN, GND on the first side panel and VCC, DOUT, GND on the last side panel. Screw on the sides using M3 x 6 or M3 x 8 screws. Next connect the bottom VCC, DIN, GND to the VCC, DOUT, GND wires of the last side panel and screw it in-place.

A visual table showing each of the LED references for use in code

Panel LED sequence starting from top then sides and finally bottom

For the top panel, connect the VCC, DOUT, GND to the VCC, DIN, GND wires of the first side panel. Add wires to VCC, DIN, GND of the top panel. These will ultimately be connected to the custom PCB.

Make and assemble the PCB

Eagle files have been included so that you can get the board manufactured or make it yourself. Mine was made using the Toner method. I have left small holes so that I could attach wires and connect the board to my Digispark Development System. This allowed me to develop the software. In theory, you shouldn't need to do this as you can just program the ATTiny85 and solder it to the board.

The LED Cube connected to the Digispark Dev System

Development system used to test hardware and develop the software

Programming the ATtiny85

To program the ATTiny85, I used my AVR programmer to burn a Digispark bootloader onto the chip and then uploaded the sketch it using my Digispark development system.

Once tested, solder the programmed ATtiny85 to the board and wire it to the cube.

The LED Cube connected to the battery and ATTiny board assembled

(Note: The picture of the V2 PCB shown above was my development board. The 1K5 resistor you see tacked on the board has been incorporated on the V3 board.)

 Finally place everything inside the cube

The cube assembled with the top panel removed

And screw on the top panel

The LED Cube fully assembled

Attachment - neopixel-mini-cube-files.zip

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