ghiro_1993:
Hi everyone,
I'm a occasionally arduino user and i need to make a project that i think it's very hard:
I need to plug a very important number of led on arduino (approximately 600) and i need that each led will turn on and then the same led will turn off when the next led will turn on...in this way i want to create a "led chain".
At the moment that arduino has not more i/o port...how i can to plug this big quantity of led in this way?
There's a lot of ways to do this but they all have one thing in common, you need to connect up some chips which accept serial data from the Arduino (so they only need two or three pins) and light up banks of LEDs using that data.
Look at datasheets for chips like these: TLC5925, MAX2719, WS2803
Most (all?) of these chips can be joined together in a chain to control any number of LEDs with no extra Arduino pins needed.
I think the chips you choose will depend on the shape of the thing you're making - a square matrix, a long strip...etc.