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Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions Manual
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Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions Manual

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Download this manual
Thank you for purchasing the Hypnocube 4Cube kit! Kit instructions and a user manual are available for
download at www.hypnocube.com. You can email any questions to contact@hypnocube.com.
Parts List
The following parts make up the 4Cube kit and should be in the box:
1. 5" x 5" x 7" clear plastic case
2. 4Cube printed circuit board (PCB)
3. 100VAC~240VAC USB power adapter
4. Mini-B USB cable
5. 22 AWG galvanized soft steel wire x40
LED Bag:
6. Diffuse RGB LED x64 (+5 spares)
Discrete Components Bag:
7. Mini-B USB jack
8. 0 resistor
9. 47K resistor x4
10. 1K resistor x2
11. 1N4148TR signal diode x24 (+1 spare)
12. 22pF ceramic capacitor x2
13. 0.1uF ceramic capacitor x6
14. 0.47uF ceramic capacitor
15. 10uF electrolytic capacitor
16. 12Mhz crystal oscillator
USB Features
We provide a few sample programs to interface with your device and change settings, control the Cube from
your own application, etc. See
Basic Button Commands
The two buttons are named A and B. "A"
denotes A button up, "a" denotes A button
down, etc., for sequences. See the online user
manual for more details.
Button(s) Down on
reset
Neither
Button A
Button B
Buttons A and B
Buttons A and B, hold
Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013
Things that go blink in the night
www.hypnocube.com
Effect
White screen
Blue screen
Green Screen
Red Screen
Red Screen, then
blinking, then Reset
Gadget
IC Bag:
17. PIC18F4620 microcontroller
18. PIC18F14K50 microcontroller
19. SN74AHCT574 octal flip-flop x4
20. ULN2803A Darlington transistor array
21. 22 resistor array
22. 47 resistor array
23. 68 resistor array
Hardware Bag:
24. 12" red wire
25. 24" white wire (possibly black)
26. Toggle switch
27. Momentary toggle switch x2
28. 1" threaded standoff x4
29. 3/8" 4-40 screw x8
30. Rubber feet x4
for instructions and sample software for USB features.
Sequence
Description (Command name in bold)
while running
aA
Next visualization.
bB
Prev visualization.
abAB
Lock current visualization. Gadget shows a brief
pause then continues running the visualization.
Executing Next or Prev releases lock
baBA
Pauses current image, resulting in a still image.
Executing Next or Prev releases pause.
abBbBA
Removes currently playing visualization from the
playlist.
Visualization can be reinstated through the console
editor or through a Reset. Lock the visualization
prior to removal to prevent accidently removing
the wrong visualization.
- 1 -

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Summary of Contents for Hypnocube 4Cube

  • Page 1 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Things that go blink in the night Thank you for purchasing the Hypnocube 4Cube kit! Kit instructions and a user manual are available for download at www.hypnocube.com. You can email any questions to contact@hypnocube.com.
  • Page 2 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Introduction This is the instructions for building the 4×4×4 “4Cube” kit. The three main parts are titled “The “The Bad” and “The Good”, Ugly”. “The Good” we construct the circuit board. This should be similar to any other electronics kit.
  • Page 3 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Part 1: The Good Part one is assembling the controller PCB. This should be straightforward for anyone who has done PCB work; there's nothing exotic here. Estimated completion time: 1.5 - 3 hours.
  • Page 4 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 2: Resistors Next we will place the resistors and a jumper masquerading as a resistor. We have three resistor values here, 1K (brown-black-red,) 47K (yellow-violet-orange) and 0 (single black stripe). The 47K...
  • Page 5 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 3: Small capacitors Next solder the six 0.1uF and two 22pF ceramic capacitors, shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6: 22pF ceramic capacitors. The two look very similar so take care to not mix them up. The 0.1uF capacitors go in C4 through C9 (Shown if Figure 8: 0.1uF ceramic capacitors in place.)
  • Page 6 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 4: Crystal and USB jack The mini USB jack and the crystal both have similar heights so we’ll do them together next. The USB jack might be a bit tricky since it has a smaller pin spacing...
  • Page 7 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 5: Chips, dips, chains, whips... It's time to place some chips. When the chips are down..ICs can be damaged by static from your fingers, so ground yourself as usual when working with static-sensitive electronics.
  • Page 8 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Next do the ULN2803A (Figure 14.) Again, note the orientation – it’s the opposite of the other ICs on that side of the board, so it’s particularly easy to get wrong. Here’s the board with the first set of chips in place.
  • Page 9 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 6: Resistor arrays These are just an array of resistors packaged into a chip which we decided to use over discrete resistors for convenience. Note that the footprints on the PCB still show the individual resistors. Since these are just resistors in a fancy package, the orientation does not matter.
  • Page 10 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 7: The PICs We have two PIC microcontrollers, one running the main firmware and the second handling USB duties. The Big Kahuna is the PIC18F4620. Just make sure you put it in the correct orientation.
  • Page 11 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 8: Large(r) capacitors Lastly, there are two capacitors that sit the highest. One is the blue 0.47uF capacitor. It goes in C10, next to the bottom PIC. It is not orientation sensitive.
  • Page 12 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Part 2: The Bad In "The Bad" we will construct the LED lattice. This will consist of four steps: bending the LED leads into the required shape, soldering the LEDs into eight strips of eight LEDs each, then soldering the strips into an 8×8 grid, and finally cutting this grid CAREFULLY into four separate 4×4 grids.
  • Page 13 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 The pins are bent as follows: 1. The first lead (the red lead, next to the flat spot) is bent as close to the base as possible, and MUST GO IN THE DIRECTION INDICATED. Make sure you do not bend in the opposite direction.
  • Page 14 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 29: Rendering of a properly bent LED. Now, bend one LED, which will be your template to follow while bending the other LEDs. I recommend bending one LED, then double, triple, and quadruple checking that it is EXACTLY like the above pictures.
  • Page 15 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 30: Unbent LEDs in jig. Figure 31: Bent LEDs in jig. Another good idea is to draw a picture on the jig showing how the LED sits and how the pins bend, as one of our customers has done.
  • Page 16 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 32: Wood jig with LED drawing. When using this method, it is critical that you insert the LED in the hole in the proper way. A backwards LED probably won't be noticed until it's in the cube and you find that a LED doesn't light or a column of LEDs lights erratically.
  • Page 17 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Make 8 equally spaced marks on the jig, and then make 8 holes of LED diameter. A pen punches holes fine in cardboard, and a drill works for the wood jig shown above.
  • Page 18 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 34: The cross wire (yellow) position. Figure 35: The cross wire (yellow) position. Now you can solder a wire down as in Figure 34, with the cross wire on the correct side and centered, with equal amounts hanging off either ends.
  • Page 19 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 36: The cross wire atop the LED ground wires. Figure 37: Close-up of cross wire soldered onto an LED. To hold the cardboard jig stable while soldering, two books work well, as shown Figure 38. Do not let the cross wires touch any leads besides the ground leads from the LEDs.
  • Page 20 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 38: Soldering the LED strip on a cardboard jig. Soldering here can be tricky, since the long wires are galvanized steel (steel was necessary to provide sufficient structural strength, and also wasn't too expensive to get pre-straightened in low quantities.) Steel holds...
  • Page 21 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 39: Single LED strip. Now repeat the process and make 7 more strips. On the last strip use your reference LED, and save any extra LEDs in their original form since they are easier to store.
  • Page 22 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 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.
  • Page 23 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 41: Wooden jig. Figure 42: Wooden jig with thumbtacks made by a customer. You will attach the strips to the grid as follows. Place a strip across the top, LEDs pointing straight to the top of the jig (the cross section).
  • Page 24 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Don’t allow the LEDs to be rotated - they should all be parallel. Make the strip as straight across as possible. Once the strips are soldered together you cannot reorient them easily, so do it correctly now.
  • Page 25 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 44: Placing the first wire. Note that the extra length is entirely at the bottom. Solder the drop wire at about the flat spot on the red lead – Figure 46 shows the correct spacing.
  • Page 26 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Once you have the first wire done, you can continue on and do the rest of the red drop wires (8 in all.) While soldering, try to make sure that the LEDs remain lined up in a nice lattice. This is most important for the first set of drop wires;...
  • Page 27 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 47: Soldering blue drop wires. The blue drop wire should be about level with the red drop wire already in place, and about the same distance from the LED. Figure 48: Close-up of two drop wires soldered in place.
  • Page 28 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 49: Another view of the blue drop wire. Figure 50: Second set of drop wires in place. Once the two sets of drop wires (16 wires in all) have been soldered in, the lattice is strong enough that you can remove it from the jig to do the other side.
  • Page 29 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 51: Lattice with all drop wires soldered. Once you have all three sets of drop wires soldered in place, we can clip the excess length off of all of the LED leads.
  • Page 30 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Congratulations again! You have completed the hardest part of the cube. The rest is being careful, and perhaps some troubleshooting if needed. Step 4: Cutting the grid We will now cut the 8x8 grid into 4 separate 4x4 grids. Be very careful when cutting, as cutting in the wrong spot will entail some very tricky soldering to fix.
  • Page 31 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 54: Cutting points for vertical wires. Figure 55 shows another close up. Cut the wires between column D and column E, immediately to the right of the column D LEDs. Figure 55: Cutting point for horizontal wires.
  • Page 32 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 56: The four separated 4x4 planes. Trim off the top 3 ground wires on two of the newly created planes to match the other two. Make sure you leave the bottom one! Your planes should now look like Figure 54.
  • Page 33 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 This saves us a bit of hassle in Part 3, taking what would be the trickiest ground drop and making it the easiest! Figure 58: Close up of bending the bottom ground drop wire.
  • Page 34 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 60: The 4 completed 4x4 planes. Congratulations, you have completed the second part of three. We would like to hear how long it took you to do this part, and other useful details, in order to make this exposition better.
  • Page 35 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Part 3: The Ugly (Actually, “The Ugly” is nowhere near as ugly as it once was, due to improved techniques. But “The Somewhat Unpleasent” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.) In “The Ugly” we will put everything together, attaching the LED planes to the PCB, and then mounting the whole thing into the case.
  • Page 36 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 2: Attaching the power switch We will next connect the power switch before proceeding with the LED planes. While they may get in the way a bit while attaching the planes, having power available will allow us to test each plane as we go. This will make it much easier to find and fix any problems in the LED lattice, while it is still accessible and not surrounded by other LEDs.
  • Page 37 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 63: Power switch connection point. Figure 64: Power switch attached - 37 -...
  • Page 38 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 3: Making the ground drop wires To connect the ground wires from each row to the PCB, you will need 12 drop wires, 4 each of 3 lengths (the fourth drop wire is already “built-in” to the plane.) Take 4 full length pieces of wire, and cut each one into 3 lengths –...
  • Page 39 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 66: Close-up of hooks on the ground drop wires. Step 4: Attaching planes (Please note that many of the following pictures are from an older revision of the board so may look slightly different from yours –...
  • Page 40 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 wire should slot into the GND hole on the side marked “Lowest” on the PCB. Otherwise all of the GND holes should be open. Do not solder yet! Figure 67: Close up of the LED holes.
  • Page 41 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 68: First grid attached. Now we will attach the ground drop wires. Take one drop wire of each length that we made in Step 1, and insert them into the GND holes in the PCB, hooking them on to the horizontal ground wires as shown below. The wires go from the shortest on the left to the tallest on the right (there are also labels “lowest”...
  • Page 42 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Make sure that there are no shorts and the drop wire only touches the PCB and cross wire from which it’s hanging. You can then solder the tops of the wires at the hook. How carefully you align the drop wire when soldering is a matter of personal preference and patience.
  • Page 43 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Appendix 3: Troubleshooting. If this part passes on the first try, then you are doing great. Quite often you need to find a loose solder joint, fix shorted wires, or find some other missing or poor connection to get the cube flawless.
  • Page 44 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Step 5: Attaching the buttons Well, we’re calling them buttons to differentiate from the power switch, but they are actually momentary toggle switches. Because these switches have a defined rest position, it is important to wire them properly (otherwise they will be “pressed”...
  • Page 45 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 74: Power switch mounted in place (ignore the power jack since that’s no longer used.) Next attach the remaining two switches to the case. To be consistent with our other documentation, you should place the switch labeled “BTN1”...
  • Page 46 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 75: Mounting the buttons. Once all of the switches are secure, position the standoffs over the four mounting holes on the bottom. Insert the remaining screws through the rubber feet, and screw the case to the spacers.
  • Page 47 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 76: Mounting hardware as seen from below. Place the top of the case on, and voila! You have constructed a difficult yet beautiful kit! Be careful when picking it up that you do not grab the top half of the case, and accidentally drop the bottom half.
  • Page 48 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Figure 77: The finished cube. - 48 -...
  • Page 49 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Appendices Appendix 1: A cheap jig I can’t recommend anyone use this jig since improvements have been made that make a nice jig much more accessible to those without woodworking tools or skills. See Appendix 2 below for more details.
  • Page 50 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 The following wood jig is obsolete, though the canvas frame suggestion might still be useful for some. Tip: One of our customers suggested using the frame from an art canvas. I haven’t tried it, but it looks like you can get such canvases quite cheap (several dollars) and requires no carpentry tools or skills.
  • Page 51 Hypnocube 4Cube Instructions v 6.5, December 2013 Appendix 3: Troubleshooting With just about every problem, you should first make sure that the lattice wires are not shorting! There’s even been a case of a completely non-responsive cube (power problem, right? – that’s what we thought too) because...
  • Page 52 We released detailed specs on the protocol to talk to the PIC, sample C++ source code, and a sample program to fiddle with the Hypnocube settings. But for those who really want to get their hands dirty and reprogram the PIC microcontroller with their own code, here are some things to get you started.