REVIEW: Pico Cube
By Marc de Vinck. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
3D LED cubes have been around for a long time. They are a relatively popular kit for DIYers. However, they are also typically difficult to build, as they usually rely on free-form soldering of many through-hole LEDs to form the cube. I have built a few 3×3×3 cubes, and although they came out well, they weren’t exactly fun to put together. I never attempted to build a 4×4×4.
The Pico Cube, from SB Components in the UK, is a 4×4×4 cube that runs via a Raspberry Pi Pico and aims to make building a 3D LED cube actually enjoyable. They took out a lot of the variability of the building process by integrating PCBs instead of relying on the LEDs’ wires for the structure. And for those of you that don’t want to deal with soldering (gasp!), they even offer a fully assembled version!
Verdict
8/10
An easier way to build a cube.
Marc de Vinck is the founder of Unexpected Labs and creator dLUX-dLites
Subscribe to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine
Save up to 37% off the cover price and get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with a subscription to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
More articles
Win one of three Raspberry Pi 4 with 3GB RAM!
Raspberry Pi 4 is still a powerful piece of kit, and this new 3GB version is great for projects and builds that need slightly more than 2GB of RAM but don’t quite need 4GB. We have three to give away and you can enter below. Win 1 of 3 Raspberry Pi 4 3GB
Read more →
Etch A Sketch CNC machine
The software controlling the Etch A Sketch logs the image, turns it into vectors, turns the vectors into G-code, then sends the G-code to the Etch A Sketch – and it was all written by AI
Read more →
Vintage Radio Plex Server
There’s an antenna sticking up on this build, but it’s just for show
Read more →