YAMC (Yet Another M___c____ Cube)! by Dershum

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Full instructions on how to build, photos, etc., can be found on my blog: http://trippingthenerdcurmudgeonly.blogspot.com/
And to see it in action!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbky7AzVbHs
This project started back around December of 2014. I was poking around on the various 3D printing sites, looking for a printable gift for a friend’s daughter for Christmas. There were tons of M___crafty things out there, and I thought “ohhh...one of those ore nodes that has lights in it is kinda cool”. So I printed a couple, played with them, and decided it just wasn’t fancy enough.
But I’m definitely not the first.
There’s lots of them out there - most of them use LED tea lights or simple LED lights connected to coin cell batteries. In typical “Phill” fashion (as my wife likes to call it) I decided to over-engineer a solution that has way more functionality than necessary, while at the same time letting me play with lots of electronic components and microcontrollers in the process.
I went through several prototypes during the development of YAMC. A couple of different microcontrollers, a couple different kinds of LEDs, switches, power connectors, potentiometers, etc. I even at one point tried to include a microphone into the design.
So I eventually scaled back, decided on a final set of functionality (the three modes you see in the cube now), and limited the electronics. Mostly to cap things like “cost”.
That said, I really hope you make one of these and enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to design, a labor of love to force myself to complete, and a real challenge to stay “focused” on.