| Jamh |
I would like to build a fancy chandelier that floats over our dining room table, made of LED lights, perhaps each LED light suspended by its own wire to make the whole thing like a flattened cube.
Anyone has any suggestion wrt the controlling circuit? I'd like to change the intensity of the lights, and turn them on/off based on some patterns.
One thought is to have the lights controlled from an old laptop that I have through its serial interface to the controlling circuit and supply it with a matrix of data, so that if there are 10x7x4 LEDs the matrix will look like:
v(0,0,0) = 0
v(0,0,1) = 2
v(0,0,2) = 1
...
v(10,7,3) = 3
v(10,7,4) = 0
Where do I get that many LEDs for cheap? |
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| Geek |
Hi,
| quote: | Originally posted by Jamh
Where do I get that many LEDs for cheap? |
Ebay would be your best bet.
We made a list recently of reliable sellers of hobby stuff. Can't remember the thread off the top of my head though :(
Cheers! |
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| I_Forgot |
I'd probably set up four matrix driver boards, one for each 10 x 7 matrix. Then wire the LEDs so that they are addressed by specific row and column drivers. You PC program will have to address the four matrices (your z coordinate) and the specific LEDs you want turned on/off (your x, y coordinates).
I would use PICs for the matrix drivers, unless there is an off-the-shelf LED matrix driver that can do the job, and there probably is if you search long enough.
There's going to be a LOT of wiring to address that many LEDs.
I_F |
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| I_Forgot |
That's a bit dated! You can definitely do better with modern parts. Use high pin count PICs or smaller PICs plus power shift register chips such as the TPIC6C596.
I think you can drive a 10x7 array of LEDs using a PIC with 28 pins, but there are some thermal considerations that limit the number of LEDs can be on at the same time.
I_F |
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