Step 29Build the cube: attach cables

64+8 wires have to go from the controller to the LED cube. We used ribbon cable to make things a little easier.

The ground layers use an 8-wire ribbon cable.

The cathodes are connected with 4 16-wire ribbon cables. Each of these ribbon cables are split in two at either end, to get two 8-wire cables.

At the controller side, we attached 0.1" female header connectors. These plug into standard 0.1" single row PCB header pins.

The header connector is a modular connector that comes in two parts, metal inserts and a plastic body.

The metal inserts are supposed to be crimped on with a tool. We didn't have the appropriate tool on hand, so we used pliers. We also added a little solder to make sure the wires didn't fall of with use.

1) Prepare one 8-wire ribbon cable and 4 16-wire ribbon cables of the desired length
2) Crimp or solder on the metal inserts.
3) Insert the metal insert into the plastic connector housing.
4) Solder the 8-wire ribbon cable to the cathode risers. Pre-tin the cables before soldering!
5) Solder in the rest of the cables. The red stripe on the first wire indicates that this is bit 0.
6) Tighten the screws on the strain relief to make sure everything stays in place.
7) Connect all the ribbon cables to the PCBs in the correct order. See pictures below. Our 8 wire ribbon cable didn't have a red wire. Just flip the connector 180 degrees if your cube is upside-down.

Step 30Build the controller: layout