Sep 20, 2011

37 notes

Arduino

I’m currently in the process of learning Arduino. My first project will be some kind of reactive LED screen, hidden away below a piece of grass. I’ve split the design and production into 4 different steps:

  1. Create an easily controlable LED screen
  2. Add reactivity to the LED screen using pressure sensors
  3. Finalize the design of the screen and (generative) animations
  4. Hide all the technology away below a piece of (artificial grass) making sure the LEDs will shine trough.

I’m currently still working on step 1. I’ve already tried 2 different techniques:

The first technique is multiplexing: with the chip I had i could split 4 arduino ports into 16 seperate ports. The problem with this technique is that you can only control one of the 16 LEDs at a time (from what I understand from it). That’s not gonna fly with a 12 x 24 LED setup. 

The second one is using a shift register (74HC757). In a shift register you can close ‘the latch’, update all the LEDs with a new state using bit values and then open the latch again, updating all LEDs simultaniously. The video below show a demonstration:

Next I’ll be looking into creating a matrix of LEDs, in the hope that I won’t have to solder 288 (12 x 24) LEDs, but just 36 (12 + 24). 

If you have experience doing this please let me know?

  1. peeke posted this
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