Added: 3 years ago
From: zupnikal
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  • HI!! i want one!! Where can i buy thisone? ebay? thank you!

  • @ctwkkk: I don't make these anymore. BUT nowadays you can get a much brighter unit from others. Google for 'colorduino'. You will need to be familiar with programming in C and feel comfortable with microcontrollers.

  • The best...

  • How do you do PWM with the shift registers?

  • @FutureInventions: by updating the data very very fast. Today you can easily do it with a library called 'ShiftPWM'.

  • @zupnikal Cool, thanks!

  • @e2thevan clearly you didnt understand my point you troll grfo my nuts and go find somthing better to do with your life. this is me being nice

  • Hi, did you transistors for driving the LEDs? How many? How did you configure them? Thank you

  • @mattYYYz: No I didn't :-) This is an el-cheapo version using shift registers only. All info is on my blog. And the link to that is on my channel page.

  • Hey is this your own project? If it is you should enter the Nuts & Volts "LED Madness" contest on Facebook. There looking for people to upload a short video of their own LED projects and the top 3 videos with the most votes wins. Just search for Nuts & Volts Magazine on Facebook or visit their site and you'll see a banner at the bottom of the page to enter the contest. I think you might have a good chance with this project. :)

  • there is something that I do not understand, how to make each LED change color?

    Please somebody explain me.

  • @sacramento2032: there's a section of RAM that is used as a framebuffer. This 'video-ram' is permanently processed by an interrupt routine and translated line-by-line to the color that is requested using PWM. You can find code for this little project on my blog. If you use it, make sure to get the latest version from the software repository page. The code on the individual blog posts is quite outdated.

  • This is what's going to happen:

    I have just fave'd this video. I will come back later when I am on acid to watch this.

  • @XmusicXchikkX: Have fun and watch all the pretty colors.

  • @zupnikal How would you go about wiring ten of these together?

  • @Dmac11a666: You'd get a couple of meters of suitable solid core wire or make a couple of connectors with 0.1'' headers. Then the fun begins, i.e. writing the code to synchronize all of them.

  • @zupnikal you know of any tuts on how to do this?

  • @Dmac11a666: If using just 2 boards counts, then there's some info on my blog. It covers making the boards talk to each other. More explicitly one board being the boss and the other one the dumb slave. This can be expanded to more boards. The 'intelligence' of the implementation is your job ;-)

  • @zupnikal Link?

  • @Dmac11a666: It's on my profile page... for ages ;-)

  • @zupnikal How about a bunch of led with senors that detect your hand above them that then light a couple of colors then turn off...Nothing more...Led table is what im after...

  • @zupnikal Would i even need and arduino for that?

  • real cool! are you able to sync your device with some music?? like to have a kind of visual equaliser ??

  • @LazoInerte: Glad to hear. It's just that there were quite a lot of comments going into the direction of your previous one. It is getting on my nerves. Maybe I should just ignore these in the future.

  • Oh well...

    Let me tell you what, little one: once you've got a little older and have had your share of unpleasant 'things' and events, you'll come to realize that there are some very basic things that make you happy, 'just because'. And personally I don't care what other people may or may not think what these might mean. If you think only queer people are allowed to like rainbows, so be it. I don't want to disturb your personal reality any further. Live long and prosper.

  • den los cktos almeno

    :C

  • Beautiful!

  • how mutch vold did u use?

  • @PSPENZO1: 5V

  • Was wondering where you got your 8x8matrix display and if it hogs up the cpu 

  • @bionio1: a) ledsee b) 50%

  • what the size of the led panel? and do u have any link to contruct the circuit? cause i'm currently doing a project on this too... need your help badly... =) thanks

  • @1991evan: it's about 60x60mm. You can find a schematic and demo code on my blog. The link is on my youtube profile page. Be aware that there are more sophisticated designs out there (colorduino / rainbowduino).

  • Out of curiosity, could you set up the led display so that it could respond to music sort of like the itunes music visualizer?

  • @LimitedWard: If the spectrum analysis is done on a PC, then I'd say yes. I know there is a FFT library for the small AVR chips out there, but it might be a bit too much in combination with the matrix code running as well.

  • @zupnikal rofl you seem like you know what your talking about. I on the other hand did not understand a word you said :)

    I will just assume that what you are saying is yes :P

  • @LimitedWard: What I wanted to say is: the matrix board can be told by a real computer what to do, but the computer will have to analyze the music and to decide what pattern should be displayed. Directly feeding the music into the little thing won't work satisfactorily (if at all). Not enough computing power.

  • Can anyone reference me to a website that teaches how to program these led boards?

  • @TheNameIsBradley: For starters you _could_ have a look at the demo code for this device, which you can find via my blog. And if it helps, it can be done with an 'Arduino' as well.

  • i wish i was smart enough to do this stuff. when i look at the comments im like holy sh*t look at these geniuses!

  • @Squashism: Well I'm certainly no genius. And don't think all of this just happened between breakfast and lunch. With enough time and motivation, anybody can do it.

  • 0:28 the gay flag?

  • @bigvato01: I don't care... for me this is just a rainbow.

  • @zupnikal

    you wrote that you use 74hc595 and PWM. do you use softpw or hardware pwm? If hardware pwm can you set the color for each dot or just for one row or something like that?

  • @marcLGehtRayn:

    It uses an interrupt to generate PWM and not the "fire and forget" built in pwm modules of the microcontroller. Therefore it should be called software pwm. This takes about 50% cpu time.

    Yes you can individually control each RGB led - that's the whole point, isn't it?

    Code can be found on my blog / github. The link is somewhere on my profile.

  • NIce, could anybody enlighen on where to buy this from? Somwhere that ships to the UK.

  • @Conj78: If you just need the LED matrix, have a look at "earthshineelectronics". They're UK based.

    If you want a "professional" pre-built product, have a look at "seeedstudio". If you want to solder and tinker and build it from scratch, have a look at my blog. I have 2 DIY kits left and I'm in the EU as well ;-)

  • @zupnikal Awesome. Thanks for the reply. I already have a bi-colour matrix, but this looks sexy. I'm only just getting back into soldering etc after many years of not doing it, so i will probably go for the pre built product.

  • @zupnikal yes get the rainbowduino from seeed, it's good fun - you can get them from cool components in the UK.

  • @mrnick1234567: There's another competitor coming up! IteadStudio is launching the 'Colorduino'. It is software compatible (using their libs) with the Rainbowduino, but uses a more intelligent driver chip to do the heavy lifting. Supposedly this would reduce the amount of work done by the ATmega168, so other stuff can be done without interfering the screen updates and so forth. No specs out yet though.

  • Comment removed

  • Hey that looks really cool. I'm not sure I could cope with coding for 160K colours though!

  • @mrnick1234567: more like 32K, but the coding is quite simple. If only the AVR could run at a bit more than 20MHz...

  • Hey use the arduino to hook it up to music and each pin as a diff color so each color is a note

  • 3 colors in the same led??? WOW

  • @PznRen: It's magic!

  • @zupnikal im pretty sure its a whole spectrum in one led because there is more than three colors in this display...

  • @abjkilladj: of course ;-)

  • @abjkilladj If you have 3 colours, then you can flash 2 at the same time to make a third. Do it at varying intensities with any combination and you can make any colour you want from RED, YELLOW, and GREEN.

  • @abjkilladj

    red green and blue create the whole spectrum, genious

  • @zupnikal RGB = Red Green Blue

  • @geobruce1995: I know ;-)

    Still it's magic, but all in the head. Just imagine your brain didn't interpret a RED + GREEN stimulus as YELLOW, but something like a dirty brown. Eating lemon ice cream would lose quite a bit of joy. Phenomenology all over the place. BTW do people still know the movie "Dark Star" ;-) ?

  • @zupnikal

    Well. every one see their own color, there is no way to distinguish that, and form a basis. Thus, there may be ppl who see yellow just as you describe, like you see brown.

  • @zupnikal but what kind of magic?

  • @MrBoomshack: Ah ah ah ... every kind of magic is ruined by a good explanation.

  • @PznRen this is quite old technology

  • Does anyone have code for this display??

  • @zacharybeal: that would be me :-)

    And if you go to my blog, you can have it too. The link is on my channel somewhere.

  • Very nice! 

  • @theaquabot14: Visit my blog, the link is on my channel page. Everything is there.

  • I need like A BILLION of these 0_o

  • Hi !

    can you send me an schematic of this?

    how you get 24 pmw outputs to drive the colours?

    can you give an idea how to do this?

    Gruss !!

  • @CxC2007: Go to my channel and click on the link to my blog. You'll find everything there on the projects page. Schematic, demo code...

  • Very nice.I'm also developing a display with RGB LEDs. see my channel.

  • @msplace08: You've got the screen grabber software running already. Nice.

  • @hackingwithdylan: Yes, 8bit serial in parallel out shift register with integrated constant current control (the same for all channels though). Yes, that's exactly how the PWM was done. All the pins of an Arduino board? That could work as well, if driving the LED matrix is all you want to do.

  • did you just use some shift registers ? :o

  • @Flavio311291: for this one yes ;-) a quick hack.

    Now I've got lots of MBI5168 sitting in a box and don't have time to make the next version...

  • oh and where is the link to your blog?

  • @Valkier09: why does youtube hide it.... If you go to my channel page by clicking on my username, you can't miss it! Profile... website...

  • can i buy this from you? please?

  • @Valkier09: Just visit my blog and you'll find a link to the DIY kits.

  • @zupnikal u sure i just cant buy it from you? im scare that i might mess up

  • @Valkier09: Well, If you're scared of soldering, get the rainbowduino from seeedstudio. It is fully assembled and a "professional product". You'll have to do some reading as to what else you may need to make these things fly. Like a suitable USB/serial adapter and so on.

  • how cost this toy

  • @hunk0105: between 40 and 50$ + shipping, depending on the manufacturer. This includes the LED matrix and the driver board. My DIY kits (soldering required) are a tiny bit cheaper, SeeedStudio's "RainbowDuino" is somewhere in between. Both need a USB serial adapter to upload code.

  • como se llaman esas luces???

  • @kasimiro79: RGB LED matrix ? You can get them at 'ledsee' or 'seeedstudio'. You'll find them using google

  • gay flag lol

  • @InfiniteSoft

    People seem to be strangely obsessed with this topic. Before it was brought up here, I didn't even know about it.

  • Wicked, where can i can one of these from???????

  • @awaqas006: If you're after a ready to use product (assembled), search the web for 'rainbowduino'. If you want to build it yourself and don't mind using a soldering iron, you can find a DIY kit on my blog. The link is on my youtube channel somewhere. Can't post it here.

  • @zupnikal can this be controled directly buy the computer? where can i get one? pm me please! i need this for a school project and i only have a week left!

  • @firestormpcs:

    Just 1 week, OMG. That's barely enough to think about and write some code if you're just starting.

    Yes, it can be controller from a computer, to some degree. You can send little 8x8 images over a virtual serial port (FTDI cable), or make it play short sequences of on board images for example. Or let it react to pressing a button or similar.

    But with just one week of time at your disposal... even shipping would take longer I guess. Continue reading the next comment.

  • @firestormpcs:

    Have a look at the RainbowDuino by SeeedStudio. If you're in the US, you can get it from local distributors there.

    It is more or less the same thing. It lacks some I/O pins, but if you don't need to react to button presses and solely control it from your computer that doesn't matter. It also works with the Arduino software and they've posted examples on their site as well. You need to get the R-duino, the LED board and an USB/serial adapter. Good luck.

  • Is this the gay flag?

  • @nukeandfusion: What are you talking about? Enlighten us.

  • the colours reminds me the gay flag colours :)

  • @nukeandfusion: Well, it's just a normal rainbow. Rainbows as such are just a basic optical phenomenon based on multiple reflections and refraction in tiny water droplets. Nothing intrinsically gay about them, unless you choose the somewhat old fashioned meaning of 'colorful' or 'happy' for that word. If the other "gay" movement has chosen a rainbow-imitating flag for their purpose, so be it. The colors are beautiful after all.

  • @zupnikal Thanks for the analysis...But it stills reminds me of the flag :)

    by the way, by saying that the colours are beautiful you want to point something? ;)

  • @nukeandfusion:

    Yes.

    This sums it up pretty good: "MnFMrNdj1yY". As youtube chooses to forbid links, even to its own site, I've just posted the video's ID.

  • 安特性交大家

  • Hey, can anyone in the US please tell me where I can find RGB LEDs for cheap in bulk? I have a project in mind that will take hundreds if not over 1000 LEDs, and I can't keep spending $2+ on these things.

  • @psyclistic:

    To be honest, I have this problem as well. If you're talking about individual RGB LEDs (smd or normal), I didn't find anything better than ebay (seller: jeledhk or topbright88) yet. I haven't ordered directly from a factory in china yet (via aliexpress), but that would only be sensible for orders in the 1000s I guess.

  • very nice :D

  • do u sell a circuit to make one of these ??

  • I have a few DIY KITs available. Just have a look at my blog.

  • sweet, i will check your blog

  • one question!.. do you use one resistor per led (in the cathode) or one resistor per color (one for each anode)??.. i`m assuming they are common cathode, if not, well its the other way arround jeje.. if you coud tellme the schematics that would be great!!.. thanks!!.. saludos desde venezuela!!.. tschüß!! jeje

  • @F3rnando666

    The LEDs are common anode. One anode powers a single row. Columns are connected by cathode. Therefore I've placed one resistor for each color onto the columns (3x8). Schematics and code can be found on my blog. You will find the link on my youtube profile page.

  • Can you share code and instruction

  • @brzi1973

    Sure. Go to my youtube profile page and click on the link to my blog.

  • How were you able to PWM so many outputs? How can you PWM those driver chips when you are sending the data in serially?

  • Una explicadita no caería mal

  • @20182584:

    What exactly do you want me to explain ?

  • nice PWM, what clock rate are you using, must be up in the MHz to get the range of colours.

    speaking of which .. how many graduations per colour are you using .. must be at least 32 per colour ?

  • The cpu clock is 16MHz, the screen refresh rate is about 50Hz. Color depth is 5bit per color, which is 32 steps ;-)

  • 1:12 is the best moment

  • roflmao.

  • Really, really nice. What kind of LEDs are those that change color?

  • Well RGB LEDs ;-)

    Or what did you have in mind ?

  • all of the EXTRA COOL things you can do with LEDs that i'd never have the patience to learn how to do. *sigh*. i'd love a bunch of these for my bike stereo & DJ systems.

    cool project

  • hi!. nice work men.. one question?!.. can you tellme a good webpage(s) or book(s) or for infomation about building rgb led matrix??.. i'm trying to make one on my own.. thanks!!...

    Saludos desde Venezuela!!..

  • Well, you can have a look at my blog.

    And of course the arduino forum !

  • ok men!:. thanks!.. will do!!..

  • you should program it to make pac-man : D

  • what type of arduino did u use?

  • At this stage I just used an ordinary Diecimila board and a few 74HC595 shift registers, resistors and tons of wires.

  • Really cool! I'm thinking of making something similar to put inside my plasma domes.

  • nice.... i'm getting one of these

  • Have fun !

  • Excellent Project !

  • how much did it cost?

  • LED matrix: 9€ + 3€ shipping + 19% import tax

    rest of electronics: about 10-15€

  • Have you had any issues with the RGB LED Matrix burning out or anything? I would like to order some today from LEDSEE. I very much appreciate your help!

  • None have burned out yet. But I'm not driving them up to the maximum current. The only issue I've had so far was color uniformity. The first shipment I got was OK, the 2nd one had quite a lot of modules that had problems with the red leds. So you definitely should work with drivers that can do dot-correction for each pixel.

  • I am going to use (3) HT1632C which does have some PWM but no dot correction.

    I have not been able to find high intensity RGB Matrixes on the web either having in the hundreds while individual RGB LEDs are in the thousands for very bright displays. Is it worth it to hand wire individual RGB LEDs for the super brightness or just accept the RGB Matrixes with ok or adequite brightness?

    Thoughts...Comments?

  • Hand wiring is insane! You can do it for maybe just one matrix of 8x8, anything more is suicide.

    I've built a prototype matrix using individual high power RGB leds and it took me several hours just for stripping the wires, soldering them to the leds, adding shrinking tube ... If you want to use single RGB leds, better make a custom PCB for it. Then you could also add transistors for more current, as shown in the datasheet for the HT1632C.

  • Did you end up ordering any? I ordered some from LEDSEE a month ago, and now I can't get in contact with them via any means.

  • I ordered from them multiple times. Shipment takes a while. I sent you a PM!

  • I ordered 12 of them from Seeedstudio. Unfortunately I needed to use Common Cathode and those are Common Anode so I needed about $50 in NPN and PNP driver chips on both cathode and anode sides. I am currently on my 3rd PCB design to simplify everything. Probably done by christmas.

  • can someone plz tell me what this is called, and by that i mean like ex. ledding or lightingmods or something

  • Is is like green+red+blue led in one? like 3Vcc and 1gnd right?

  • a) yes

    b) in this case it's 1x Vcc and 3x GND

  • Thx for reply! Im a future technician (just finished my 1st year) and im very interessed of project like that!

  • hi!! im from mex...that´s so interesting, well i´d like to know..how do the leds change of color? i have seen that leds but they just change of color by themselfs..how do you make synchronize the colors? ... i apologize for my bad english...thanks

  • It works like an old TV with a cathode ray tube. The LEDs are scanned line by line. The human eye is slow enough to make it look like a static image. If you click on my youtube profile you'll find a link to my blog. There you can find code and more explanation. If you want you can also get the PCBs there (quite cheap). From time to time I also sell these on Etsy.

  • very nicer

  • are y from gemany?

  • what if ?

  • lol it was goin crazy

  • how led driver do you use ??

  • 4x 74HCT595 shift register + software PWM (interrupt driven)

    It's all in my blog. You can find a link to it if you click on my youtube profile.

  • Do you use transitors at all to drive the matrix. For example, do you use the ULN2803A transistor array to drive the cathodes? Could you post the link on your blog how to do the PWM with the HCT595 chips? I just can't imagine how you shift the pulse widths into the HCT595. Thanks for any tips/help.

  • I can't post links on the comments.

    If you go to /user/zupnikal on the youtube site there will be a link to my blog you can't miss. All you need is there. You can even buy PCBs for it there :-)

    I don't use any transistors, just the 74HC595 chips.

  • Maybe have a look at these chips:

    - M54564P/FP

    - MBI5168

  • thanks a lot about the information!

    Do you have an instructional video or sheets or something to build my own project?

    I dont know anything about arduino boards but it seems to be a pretty interesting issue! i wanna learn more about that kind of programation and the possibility of doing things with my pc.

    Ps: sorry for my english, i speak spanish

    Regards

    Mario

  • Except for my blog, no. If you want to get started, best go to the arduino homepage. There's a wiki and tutorials and a forum (also with a spanish group).

  • hi! , how much does the project costs you? and do you have the schematics or something to build my own project?

    regards

    Mario

  • The LED matrix cost me about 10€, the driver chips (4x) cost 70¢ each, the CPU about 4€. Then some perfboard, wires and so on. The most expensive single part was the USB-serial cable for 20€. If you buy the latest arduino board instead, you can make it work for less than 50€ and will have a lot of fun. More info is available on my blog. The link should be in my youtube profile.

  • I am building essentially the same thing with the same components. The Sparkfun matrices and controller boards are WAY too expensive. I will check your code but am a little confused as to how to do PWM using the 595s. I have mocked up all pieces and seems to be working (just using a standard Deicimila) and next step is to solder them up. I'm trying to get things as small as possible on some veroboard without doing a whole bunch of wiring but it's not easy.

  • The PWM is essentially done by refreshing the matrix very very fast. For each refresh the code checks if a single led should be on or off to get a certain brightness level.

  • Makes sense and makes me think I've tackled things the wrong way. Because of the wiring I can only light a single color at a time, I light all LEDs of a certain color in a given column at a time. This eliminates flicker but means no PWM. I'll try to figure out how that ISR you have is working and use that. Will let you know how it goes.

  • I've figured out one problem at least. It seems I was basing my testing on RED and GREEN. The forward voltage of RED is much lower than that of GREEN and hence I thought I could only light one at a time. I've switched to BLUE/GREEN for now and the PWM based on your code works GREAT. So now my problem is how to wire this thing to balance out the voltages.

  • All in processing?

  • Hmmm. I used the arduino environment, so it is C/C++ I think.

  • very nice. now let's see doom running on it :)

  • LOL. Maybe I can have it display a medkit :-)

  • np, as I cannot post any links here I put a link to my blog into my profile. there y'all will find all you need: datasheets, schematic, code, atmega168 hex files. the c-code is meant to be compiled with the arduino environment. otherwise a lot of includes are missing.

    cheers

  • where can i find an rgb matrix by ebay? i cant find any..

  • you need to go to the 'stores' category on any ebay site and search for ledsee (by store, not by item)

  • hey nice job ...

    you dont know how long i was looking for cheap rgb led matrices (sparkfuns are much more)

    the seller on ebay doesnt say whether the matrix he is selling is common anode or common cathode ..

    can you tell me ?

  • the matrix is configured like this:

    common anode for each row, common cathode for each column per color. there is a pdf spec sheet on the ledsee_d*t_c*m website.

  • Could you tell me the manufacturer and item number of the rbg matrix? Thanks!

  • the company is called LEDSEE. they've got shops on the ebays, but also ship directly from china. the module is 9 euros, no part number. it's the only rgb one they have. if you google for my post in the arduino forum, you'll get a link with some photos of the device.

  • Thanks a lot! I've found it!

  • What ISR chip(s) are you using ?

  • I just use 4x 74HC595 shift registers. Luckily the leds don't need that much current. To get them even brighter I mi