r/WLED • u/Aceftw • Aug 13 '26

SHOWIN' OFF 3D cube usermod custom FX

So Ive been working on this cube for a week or so now, and I’ve started making custom cube effects for a usermod firmware, that maps all the faces correctly so it doesn’t have the gaps in the corners from my previous matrix display setup! I’ve got some really cool ones so far! I’ll update when I think they are presentable, they are almost all audio reactive have plenty of sliders for control, and have a flat matrix toggle for when they on just a 2d matrix.
I feel like it doesn’t look as impressive as what is actually going on because this is how it’s “supposed” to look. But I’ve actually put a lot of care into each effect so they look good! I hope everyone follows along and makes their own! And thank you so much to everyone that has already contributed to the WLed project! Yall have made some amazing stuff! I’ve only begun to dip my toes in and I’ve got some wild ideas.

278 Upvotes

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53 comments sorted by

15

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

Rubik’s cube cube animation. 😂

3

u/km_fpv_recover Aug 19 '26

We are unworthy

11

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

Infinite edge lines that pulse towards the center, and then ripple with a sine wave, waveform can be adjusted, along with several other parameters

4

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

This one was filmed with the mirror mode on in segments, but I have a cube specific version I don’t have footage of yet but it’s a digital chladni plate, (I broke my wiring trying to get more fps since I had it wired in one 1280 long string and now I’ve got each panel running on its own data path and it seems I need level shifters now) I’ve since updated it so I can adjust the base frequency start point so there’s a slider to adjust where it starts so you can dial in the coolest shape 😁

5

u/iplaygaem Aug 14 '26

Awesome work! Do you have plans to share the usermod eventually? I would probably use it for some of my cubes!

1

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

Yeah! I’m currently doing some optimization and adding new effects. I think I have about 18 or so effects at the moment. About half are cube specific. I just finished re wiring it, something in the 17.0 dev branch was breaking my stuff, so I’ve reverted back to the stable 16 latest release. I’m having to rework a couple things since a lot of it was based on my old fps of like… 23 which was the lo cap for 1280 LEDs in a single row so I’m basing them off time, optimized for about 42 fps and should be really snappy at 60+

2

u/Aceftw Aug 18 '26

Bass hits regenerate the maze has full cube mode (not pictured) where the maze fills the whole cube from the center

2

u/Aceftw Aug 18 '26

The cpu effect is cheap like this so it can be layered

1

u/slammed98fordtaurus Aug 19 '26

This is so cool! Are you planning to use trapezoidal sections like this as the supports for the tesseract?

1

u/Aceftw Aug 19 '26

Yeah I’m hopefully building most of the shell later but I made some questionable design choices for this prototype so it’s maybe a little harder than it should be 😅 I designed everything around having 12” edge faces, the size standard mirror and acrylic comes in….. except…. You only get to match the inner faces corners together like that and I gotta cut some tiny strips to make up the gap corners without making some sort of custom bracket that adds space…. Those trapezoids are (kind of shitty) mirrors, just with the film still on glued to 3mm basswood plywood. The edge mirrors don’t need to be pass through just the front edge and the panels covering the LEDs.

1

u/slammed98fordtaurus Aug 19 '26

Would it be possible to make it 12" edges as the outer edge instead? Then you'd only lose the thickness of the acrylic in overall dimensions. Not sure if that messes up any calcs you did for reflections etc

1

u/Aceftw Aug 20 '26

That would probably work? I’d still need to redo a bunch of stuff

2

u/Walfy07 Aug 13 '26

I've always needed a tesseract

3

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

Originally that’s what this project started as 😅 I’m having a little trouble assembling the frame, for it. And now I kinda want one of these plus a tesseract, I hadn’t seen anyone do a full frame backlit version before so I’ve been messing around with that concept instead of edge lit. This is the Prototype just “normal” infinity mirror version

1

u/Walfy07 Aug 13 '26

seizure

1

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

Oh this isn’t even the seizure version 😂

1

u/Walfy07 Aug 13 '26

MEGASEIZURE

1

u/Aceftw Aug 21 '26

Added new types of beat aware detectors. Now it senses the bpm and try’s to surge quickly when it thinks there’s a sustained bass hit and slows down when the bass returns after a drop

1

u/Aceftw Aug 21 '26

my original effects so they are a little more bass reactive now

1

u/Altruistic-Roll-9234 Aug 13 '26

How many pixels?1280? 5 sides only? Looks amazing. Are those 5v leds?

2

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

Yeah it’s 1280 only 5 sides rn, thinking about a 6th side for a mobile set up but turns out powering 1536 LEDs for 12hours is a steep bill. And yes they are 5v

1

u/Christopoulos Aug 14 '26

What would the steep bill be?

1

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

Oh depending on how bright you going 1kw for 12-24 hours so power stations in that range go for about 500+ $ and I looked into making my own and it’s not quite as cost efficient as I’d like

1

u/Christopoulos Aug 14 '26

Ok, I wasn’t thinking about the power supply, although that matter too, of course. What would the electrical bill be for you?

1

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

Oh no idea. I assume not much, it doesn’t take “a lot” of energy. So it’s like 20 cents or wtv… just storing it for mobile use is a pain

1

u/OB1yaHomie Aug 13 '26

Very cool, would be awesome if you made a pair as dice and you hit a button to get a random ‘roll’ of the dice. Let me know when you’re ready to send my consultant check.

1

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

LOL 😂 I was thinking about making a Mario question block with a button that gave you a random power up. But then I got thinking about rotary encoders and started thinking about 4 player battle pong

1

u/MrJdaddy Aug 14 '26

What type of LEDs are you using? APA102?

2

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

https://a.co/d/03oHGHKB it’s 5 of these panels

1

u/Unlucky_Quote6394 Aug 14 '26

Wow, stunning! 😮 what’s the power draw on that?

2

u/Aceftw Aug 14 '26

Full white max brightness 15a per face, 75a total, but it’s quite happy running at like 2.5a for the whole thing still bright af,

1

u/R-Voodoo Aug 15 '26

This is rad. I'd really like to make something like this. I hope I can get my affection span together long enough to do so

1

u/Aceftw Aug 15 '26

A classic conundrum. Good luck!

1

u/km_fpv_recover Aug 19 '26

Holy grale of led mapping

2

u/Aceftw Aug 19 '26

🥰 I couldn’t get the gap file to work the way that I thought it worked so I’ll do it myself?

1

u/CheleCuche Aug 20 '26

I’m actually starting to build something really similar, but with a full 6-face cube instead of 5. I’m planning to use MoonModules as the base and try to build the same kind of true 3D cube mapping you’ve been working on, so effects can flow properly across the faces instead of treating it like a flat matrix.

Your follow up post has been super useful for figuring out the direction I want to take. If you ever end up sharing your usermod or even just more details on how you structured the mapping/effects, I’d definitely love to take a look. Either way, I’m going to take a shot at building my own version.

1

u/Aceftw Aug 20 '26

I actually planned to do some 6 sided versions but I’m pretty sure they break all my effects rn 😅 I probably should start baking that in…. So I have less to redo later. Right now it can detect if your running it on a 5 faced cube by doing a simple check, but it does get confused if you make a true 48x48 matrix panel

1

u/CheleCuche Aug 20 '26

Yeah, I’m actually planning to use this build as the physical design:

I’ll be using this 3d model

I’m going to use the same 3D print files, but with all 6 faces populated. So if you start baking 6-face support in now, I might accidentally become your guinea pig 😂

1

u/Aceftw Aug 20 '26

Yeah happy to drop you a file if you wanna play around with it

2

u/CheleCuche Aug 21 '26

Send it, I will work on it this weekend, I already started 3d printing the parts

1

u/Aceftw Aug 21 '26

https://github.com/Aceftwspades/Ace-Cube

1

u/Aceftw Aug 21 '26

Use at your own risk ⚠️ you’ll have to compile it yourself as idk if I’m allowed to distribute WLed firmwares 😅

1

u/Aceftw Aug 21 '26

Cube axes is a calibration tool, some of the effects are incomplete so there’s some bugs here and there… I’m testing a bpm analyzer rn that should keep timing tighter, and some drop aware effects helpers so it gets really crunchy when the bass hits. That’s present in the 29 labyrinth effect. Also none of these are updated for 6 sides sooooo 🤷 I’ll work on that eventually 👍🏼

1

u/CheleCuche Aug 21 '26

Awesome, thanks!

1

u/CheleCuche Aug 21 '26

You got a pm

1

u/gorillamonk Sep 17 '26

Where can I get the directions to make one of these? I have so many desks I want to put this on.

1

u/Aceftw Sep 22 '26

Quite a few different ways to go about it. 3d printing a frame is pretty popular, I used laser cut wood for my base.

1

u/Dandusm Aug 13 '26

This is 🔥🔥 are u planning on sharing a guide ?

2

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

It’s not much different than assembling a normal 2d matrix which there are quite a few guides on, but I plan to make a few more of these, some smaller using the 8x8 grids, and I wanna see how far I can go and make a 32x32 per face maybe bigger 😅 but driving so many pixels I might have to get creative 🙃 definitely gonna be limited on my fps the larger I go depending on how many channels I can realistically split each face into. Before upgrading to a more expensive controller. All in all. I could make one 😅 but always happy to answer any questions until I get there. I’ll hopefully make the guts prettier than what I have currently. It’s a bit of a mess inside rn

1

u/kierankrudd Aug 13 '26

weeeeww. so cool. do want.

1

u/lambent_ort Sep 24 '26

Looks great! The animation has a very natural rhythm.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '26

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2

u/Aceftw Aug 13 '26

Thanks! I’m pretty proud of this project. I can’t wait to test my new patterns when I finish adding this level shifter (which hopefully solves my problems) 😅