I'm new to Arduino, I just ordered mine a few days ago, however I'm doing a (pretty ambitious) school project which prominently features a rather large LED matrix.
The project is a replica Zer0 helmet (from Borderlands 2) with a LED matrix in the faceplate to display the character's in game emotes.
I decided to use the Arduino Nano in this project due to it's small size.
After some measuring and extrapolating, I've concluded that the LED matrix I'm including in the helmet's faceplate will contain either a 24 by 40 LED matrix or a 24 by 32 LED matrix (that's 960 or 768 LEDs respectively).
I was thinking of using MAX7221 LED driver's for each grid of 8x8 LEDs.
Due to my lack of experience I have no idea how to go about wiring or coding something like this; so any help, advice or criticisms would be greatly appreciated.
(I should probably add that I took an introductory programming course last year, and that my dad is a computer programmer so he should be able to help me if I get stuck with the coding part of the project. Also, I'm going to use single color, 5mm, red LEDs.)
FlyingWaffle:
After some measuring and extrapolating, I've concluded that the LED matrix I'm including in the helmet's faceplate will contain either a 24 by 40 LED matrix or a 24 by 32 LED matrix (that's 960 or 768 LEDs respectively).
From the way you were talking I thought you were going to do a BIG matrix. 24x32 is fairly modest around here.
FlyingWaffle:
I was thinking of using MAX7221 LED driver's for each grid of 8x8 LEDs.
Good idea.
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Due to my lack of experience I have no idea how to go about wiring or coding something like this; so any help, advice or criticisms would be greatly appreciated.
(I should probably add that I took an introductory programming course last year, and that my dad is a computer programmer so he should be able to help me if I get stuck with the coding part of the project. Also, I'm going to use single color, 5mm, red LEDs.)
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If I was you I'd buy prebuilt 8x8 modules and fit them together. It'll save a lot of work and end up far neater. 8x8 LED matrices don't really cost more than buying the individual LEDs.
Thanks for the replies, guys.
I've decided to stick with the MAX7221 since there seems to be more documentation and libraries for it and since my project is very similar to one by Volpin Props:
You could save a lot of money by going to http://www.taydaelectronics.com/ for the parts. I have bought quite a few parts from them and have not had anything fail or arrive in a non working state. Not knocking digikey..... just that the LED's from taeda of $0.05 each and they are over 10 times that at digikey. doing the math and using the quantity discount on digikey
980 x 0.44 = 431.12 digikey
980 x 0.05 = 49.00 tayda