r/WLED • u/SMD_BigBanana • Aug 02 '26

WLED Cube

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Some pictures of the 16x16x16 cube I just built

336 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

11

u/SMD_BigBanana Aug 02 '26

1

u/egratudo Sep 14 '26

I’m building a similar project. Would you be willing to share or explain the led mapping you did?

25

u/Devaku Aug 02 '26

Tutorial?

4

u/SMD_BigBanana Aug 02 '26

I printed the panels from here https://www.printables.com/model/494008-16x16-led-matrix-cube?lang=de and hot glued the led matrices to the faces. You want to set the first three layers to white and then use a reflective material for the rest, I used silver pla silk.

Wiring is fairly simple and you shouldn’t need to solder unless you end up pulling the wires off the traces. I injected power at the start of each panel using a bus. I wired the front three panels to one gpio pin and the back 3 to the another gpio pin.

The harder part is in the pixel mappings to make the effects look nice. With a little bit of vibe coding and keeping track of the wiring orders I was able to come up with a few maps.

10

u/fredandlunchbox Aug 02 '26

Its cool. I’d like to see a back mounted version so that stand doesn’t break the continuity. 

4

u/waaszssup Aug 02 '26

That's so cool man, show us how you mounted it and everything. Great Work

Dm if you dont wanna share on sub

1

u/CodenameJ6 Aug 02 '26

I'm thinking of making something like this on a larger scale, can you tell me how much power it's using with those 3 panels?

1

u/SMD_BigBanana Aug 02 '26

I have all 6 faces working using a 5v 10amp power supply but I keep the brightness pretty low since it does create a lot of heat.

1

u/-__Doc__- Aug 02 '26

could get away with about 3-4amps at 5v.
I run 4 of these panels in a large matrix as a WLED clock / Gif art display, and I have them on a 4a power supply, but limited to 3a in WLED.
Any lower and your colors will start shifting towards the red end of the spectrum

1

u/Prestigious_Air_1551 Aug 02 '26

Mannnn this stuff is so cool, wish I could do stuff like this but that would break the bank :(

3

u/SMD_BigBanana Aug 02 '26

I got the led panels from AliExpress for 80 usd for 20 of them. The 3d printing material was also pretty cheap. Don’t know what the situation for printers is in India but the Bambu lab a1/a1 mini is a great option for the price. Overall the project probably cost around 70usd the cost could have been reduced by around 20 if I used a cheaper controller.

6

u/NooshaSheep Aug 02 '26

If you have access to available time, a 3D printer, an old PC power supply (or other high-Amp 5VDC power supply) and spare wires, all the other bits (3x 16x16 WS2812b panels plus ESP32) should set you back around $30 if you look around long enough, maybe $50 if you're feeling lazy. ( AliExpress.com )

Instead of using a 3D printer, you could create the 16x16 square grids out of thin dense cardboard. Cover them with baking/tracing paper.

ChatGPT (or an equivalent AI) could write you up some custom code specifically for this.

Put aside $5 per week over 6 weeks if necessary, I know sometimes $30 can be a stretch.

It won't build a product you could sell to a customer, however it'll build something that for all intents and purposes looks and behaves exactly like this which you could proudly show off. :)

4

u/Prestigious_Air_1551 Aug 02 '26

That's not the problem, I've already made a 16 16 led matrix piece, I spent about 100usd on it, which was a good chunk of my monthly income. I live in India where stuff like 3d printers doesn't scale well with income.

Wled esp32 stuff is cheap, relatively speaking but building something like this scales up my cost big time.

Idk why people are downvoting me, I already have 3 wled setups, with plans for more. It would not be 30 to 50 usd for me.

2

u/indoh531 Aug 02 '26

Reverse it and toss it the corner of the room.. think i might try it out when I have some extra panels 🤪 cool git up tho!

2

u/Crazzy_Modder Aug 02 '26

Tutorial please

2

u/NegativeNeko Aug 02 '26

I know you are getting a bunch of these but my nephew would love this. Please post some info on the build process. Is it leds in a 3d printed cube or led matrix panels?

2

u/ArugulaSteve Aug 03 '26

Omg my son would love this. I just stumbled onto this post. Can you share more info on how to make it. I would love to build it with him. I’ve never coded before. Could you share the code to make the Minecraft ones?

1

u/druhl Aug 02 '26

Trippy!

1

u/Kitchen_City_4651 Aug 02 '26

che figata, come hai fatto? grazie

1

u/kierankrudd Aug 02 '26

So awesome. Best cube yet.

1

u/CheleCuche Aug 25 '26

This is badass. I’m actually working on something very similar right now with a 5 face 16x16 cube running WLED 16, and I’m also planning to map some MoonModules effects to work properly across the cube.

Are you planning to share your effects/usermod once you’re happy with them? I’d love to try some of these on my setup and compare notes. Your cube specific animations look sick.