For my personal entertainment, I built an 8x8x8 LED cube. It was great soldering practice too.

The cube features 512 individual blue LEDs controlled using an STC 40-pin microcontroller and 8 latches. The LED cube was built on a purchased printed circuit board and required about 1,300 solder joints. It’s powered by USB and even programmable via UART.

photo of the LED cube playing an animation

detail of the LED cube construction