30 LED Fader using PWM and Arduino

[MultiJohn12321]

is this multiplexed? or arduino mega?

[LeKrizz]

pretty cool... but nothing really special. that's what i've learned after 4 school hours of programming...

[littlescale]

@LeKrizz Who said it was special?

[LeKrizz]

@littlescale if you look at all those comments that include questions like ''WTF HOW'D YOU DO TAHT'' or ''WHY DID YOU DO TAHT LIKE DIS''..

[reesk92]

@LeKrizz err did you mean to sound like a ass when you said that so what if you learnt it in 4 hours of school he may of learnt it in 20 minutes of playing about maybe he figured it out for himself and didnt need a teacher to teach him it

[LeKrizz]

@reesk92 forget about that was 2 months ago... to explain it further: I was bored all the time. I already knew the basics of programming, but thanks to my classmates i had to wait for them finishing their crap.

[JohnnyX50]

cool its like one of those things you see in the background of an eighties sci-fi series, like night rider or battlestar galactica :D

[PreadMusic]

I have a question. You say they are multiplexed, so if there are 30 LEDs, then that means that each LED is lit for 1/30th of the time while the multiplexer is running other LEDs. that would make the LED have only 1/30th of full brightness, right? how are your LEDs bright enough to see at all? Reason is, i wanted to make a 64LED multiplexed display but thought the leds would be too dim to see

[Darky9312]

@PreadMusic When you are multiplexing, you can use a lesser resistor than normal, because the Led is just a very short time "on". There are formulas to calculate the dimension of the resistor. For the first tryings I would advise you to use the normal resistor, because if the multiplexing stops by accident or you do something wrong, the Leds will be destroyed. Hope i could help you and sorry for my bad english... I'm german ;)

[jumpfroggy]

What's the refresh rate for the led's with the multiplexing? How fast can you drive these things? Thanks, looks like a great way to extend the outputs of an arduino.

[graymalkin1234]

@jumpfroggy He looks to be using 4 shift registers, you can PWM the 5V in to adjust the brightness of the output

[jumpfroggy]

@graymalkin1234 I just got a bare-bones arduino but haven't even looked into it much yet. The vid shows about a 2 second refresh rate for changing the LED's... I'm wondering if 15-30 FPS is doable on this hardware. Seems like it would be, but again I haven't looked into it much.

[graymalkin1234]

@jumpfroggy With multiplexing a refresh rate of at least 60Hz needs to be used so lights appear solid rather than flickering. With multiplexing it is very easy to shift out binary to multiple shift registers many times a second, so how ever you run the hardware a decent FPS can be had. The ATMega.xxx on a traditional arduino runs at 16Mhz but you should take into account time for the program to run. The people on the arduino forums are more qualified to help than I am. Google "Arduino Forum"

[NotReallyFailure]

lok many wires :P.

Nice project dude, make knight rider style but with PWM :P

[skierplaterandy]

is it multiplexed? or arduino mega?

[littlescale]

multiplexed :)

[graymalkin1234]

@littlescale What are the four chips to the right? Are they not Shift Registers?

[Rubdos]

@littlescale Eh, should the cathode of a multiplexed led go back into the microcontroller?! :p

[graymalkin1234]

You can see the 4 multiplexers

[skierplaterandy]

true.... XD

[Maux4200]

I dont know what it is, but its pretty therefore its cool!

[graphattic]

I enjoy the comments on these videos were people share views about stuff they made alone because there is this cooperative spirit. But whenever i see videos about macs pcs or other branded pre-assembled stuff they so boast and show off, and that makes no sense. Good work guys keep up

[hitandrun83]

pwm= pulse width module?

[robrunner8]

yes

[ps60k]

No, but close. Pulse Width Modulation.

[skierplaterandy]

pulse width modulation

[smartpartzzkidd]

MAKE A HUGE CYCLON LED ARRAY!!!!

[teabagtime]

How come your wires are so neat on the left, but pure spaghetti on the right?

Or... is it some political statement?

[littlescale]

lol, political statement!

to the left is the ground bus. So all of the cathodes of the LED's must be going to the same ground point yeah?

But... each LED is controlled individually at its cathode point. Hence, a the pure spaghetti.

Oh, no, hang on. No, no, i actually think it's a statement about the meaning of life in modern society.

;-)

[ispaklaria]

I just hooked this up myself. cool idea thanks

[TEMPHUiBIS]

-]. haha I bet you could put PHATTASTIC lights on the commodore as well .[-

[littlescale]

lol, yeah like "pimp my C=64"