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.
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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
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