Every day I get one step closer to the flocking led light
effect I want for a roomed sized installation. Granted it started with step 1,
learn to solder competently, so there’s been a lot of steps in this process.

Over the weekend I assembled this rgb led 4x4x4 cube from
Seed Studios. Assembly took a couple of hours as there are solder points all
over those stick thin pcb’s. Seed’s Rainbowduino board that is an Arduino
compatible controller board runs the cube with a professional multiplexed LED
driver. Essentially an Arduino unit all hopped up for blinky lights.
Since assembling the unit I have been working through
software bugs. When I plug it into the usb port all of the requisite led’s
light up on the board and a single red led begins to blink in the cube. That’s
it. I've read on-line that several people have noted this same state when they got done
assembling and finally juiced it up. They seem to have been able to work
through their issues, so at least I feel like I’m on the right track.
Getting the Arduino IDE to talk to the board is the big
problem. There is no specific device called “rainbowduino”. I tried using the
Uno setting and all of the 328 compatible options (at Kip’s suggestion) to no
avail.
There are a couple of hardware problems that COULD still be
wrong. I took a 50/50 gamble on two resistors, wasn't sure which was the 10K. I
matched the colors in the example on-line. I essentially didn’t look them up to double check, but still think I got right. The other thing is there’s a switch that
allows the arduino unit to draw power directly from 3volt power source rather
than the usb, again I think I got that right.
I’ve set it aside for an hour or two, there are plenty less
vexing projects. Although I did promise to have it running by the weekend, so
an hour or two max, and then more poking.