Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013
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As a final spot check, go over all 8 strips, one LED at a time, making sure the orientation of the LED is the
same and that the cross wires attach to the ground leads on the correct and same side for each LED.
Once you are satisfied that everything is correct, you can trim off the excess wire from the LED ground leads.
When clipping short wires it is best to wear protective eyewear since small wire shards sometimes shoot when
snipped (at the very least, point it away from yourself and others!)
Whew - that last part was a bit of work. Take a break, and come back when you are able to concentrate again.
Step 3: Create an 8x8 grid of LEDs
Again, read this entire step several times before starting it.
In this step, we will combine the 8 LED strips made in the previous step into one 8x8 grid of LEDs. We will
need another jig, this time to hold the LED strips in place while we solder wires across them. See Appendix 1:
A cheap jig for detailed instructions on making cardboard jig. See Appendix 2: A nice jig for detailed
instruction on making wooden jig.
The jig needs to be about 12 inches square (30 cm square) with either two raised edges along either side or a
opening in the center, across which the LED strips will be suspended. (Incidentally, this design was suggested
by one of our customers. We originally used a U-shaped jig, but this one is a lot simpler to construct, more
rigid, and works just as well. Thanks, we appreciate your feedback!)
Figure 41 shows the wood jig we use. It has thumbscrews to hold the LED strips in place, which is great for
repeated use but would probably be overkill for your purposes. One customer reports having used thumb tacks
with success. Tape can also work, though it may not be quite as secure. You can use anything you want - the
goal is to hold the strips securely in place while we solder them into a grid. The spacing between each strip
should be 1.25 inches (3.17 cm.)
Note that our jig has the holes for making the strips along the bottom, but there’s really no reason the two jigs
have to be integrated (actually it’s probably easier to use separate, it just didn’t occur to me when building this
jig) and we won’t be using the holes in this step.
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