Zirrfa DIY Implementation

Zirrfa 4x4x4 Cube

Source: AliExpress "Zirrfa 4x4x4 RGB LED Cube" at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/NEW-3D-4X4X4-RGB-cubeeds-Full-Color-LED-Light-display-Electronic-DIY-Kit-3d4-4-4/32793425203.html

The Zirrfa RGB color cube can be bought online as a DIY soldering set. It has a STC15F2K60S2 IC with a SPI interface to the Arduino controller and is therefore a 'set and forget' type of device.

Note: To use this implementation you need to install the SoftwareSerial Arduino library available at https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/SoftwareSerial The RX and TX pins selected for communications should be passed to the class constructor.

Implementation Overview

The software implements an SPI interface through the standard Arduino SPI object.

Cube data is buffered in memory in a serial 192 byte string, which represents the 4x4x4x3 bytes (the dimensions of the cube LEDs multiplied with 3 byte values (RGB) to set the color) The cube data is held in memory buffers until an update() call is made, at which point it is entirely written to the cube through the SPI interface.

Serial Communications Protocol

Serial port runs at 57600 bps. When the cube is powered up there is a 5 second delay during which commands can be received from the serial port. If the cube is not initialized within the delay period it goes into demo mode. To initialize the cube send 0xAD. To update the cube send 0xEA + 192 bytes of LED/color data + 0xEB to finish. 192 bytes = 4 x 4 x 4 x 3 RGB values.