Sign up for samples and off you go....
http://www.ams.com/eng/ICdirect-Buy-Online/Online-Shop
This is what I've had so far.

AS1130   6   132 LED driver with PWM   28   SSOP
AS5130   3   Magnetic Rotary Encoder with 8-bit Res   16   SSOP
AS1108   3   4-Digit LED Driver, Serially Interfaced   20   PDIP
AS1116   3   64 LED Driver with Detailed Error Detection   24   QSOP

The samples arrive very quickly.

I'll try the ones you suggest as well I think.

Digi-Key do them but they are very expensive. 

How many do you need? I have received 6 free samples so far....

Hi Rob, Thanks for the reply.

The ISR in the example is never called...and would not take that form if I ever get it working 

I would do some clever bit manipulation and let the main() do the donkey work, especially as the AS1130 can run pretty much independently once it's got it's data.

The problem I am having is that the IRQ line on pin 11 should be pulled to VCC by a 4k7 resistor (datasheet fig 1) but is always around 0.05V whatever I do with the Interrupt bits.

I have 2 of these chips in working condition and both show the same characteristic - hence it must be me that's not doing something I should be (or doing something I shoudn't  )

If you've got one of these working I would appreciate your measurements etc. or any other input you have of course...

Cheers, Roy

PS Love your Nomad Vehicle. 

Shift registers are notoriously noisy...have you decoupled the power supply close to the pins?

I would also shorten any wiring to as short as possible, after all wires make great aerials......

This is the latest, fully documented version of my experiments with this chip.

I want to do all the controlling (post setup) using interrupts but can't at the moment seem to get a response from the IRQ pin.

I would much appreciate any comment from people working with this chip, especially re interrupts.

Anyway here's the Vid....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZlIEfT-95w&feature=youtu.be


...and the source code...

...or have a look at this chip...

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,122138.0.html

Here's an interesting bit change that has lots of possibilities.....

Okaly Dokaly...

Here's the demo using Picture mode and PWM sets.


Source code is here:

Here's how the stripboard layout started.

Obviously all the LEDs are the same colour but in the pic they illustrate the direction of the cathodes on the board.

Green is cathode down and red is cathode up.

The reason they are soldered to one side is to enable me to solder the AS1130 and an ATMega328 on the same board and also to connect to a mirror image board to give me 24x11.

Also I've got lots of ideas for RGB matrices...but I can't face all that soldering at the moment....

HTH

On the subject of the cross-plexed matrix, here is how I simplified (!) the diagram to enable me to understand what was going on.

Hi Funky

I got the chips from AMS and soldered one onto an adaptor board that I got from China (complete with header pins  ) I then soldered all the components as per the diagram in my upload straight onto the adaptor board. This gave me a little plug-in unit that works as a module.

At present, this is plugged into a very old RS breadboard and driven by a R2 Uno.

This is my first time programming the Atmega chips but I've been programming PICs and micros for a long time.

I'll get some pics together but meanwhile  will give you an idea of the stripboard matrix and the sketch uploaded in this thread.

I have just made a Christmas tree (pretty crappy graphics) that demonstrate using 2 frames as pictures and 2 PWM sets to flash the lights.

I'll upload that soon for your perusal and I hope use. 

I think I've got this chip pretty well sussed out now and am just working on a simple spreadsheet to produce the graphics frames as binary data.

Have fun mate and success with your free samples.

ps I've just been shipped another 3.........what a cheek eh? 

Latest version uploaded...with full 36 frame movie showing scrolling.

Working on picture animation next with PWM dataset.

Wish me luck 

 
For anyone interested in this chip here is some sample code.
This is an ongoing project and I'll update as I progress.

Feel free to alter and use it as you will...but please share your discoveries...


Edit 23/10/2012:
Please also see this post for better commented code http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,123071.0.html

Edit 30/10/2012: See post #113 for latest PWM demo.

@Mike

http://www.ams.com/eng/ICdirect-Buy-Online/Online-Shop and sign up for samples.

I've just received 3...

SIN is where the serial data goes in to the chip (pin 26).
If you want to use more than one chip then the SOUT (pin 17) would connect to the next chip in line on it's SIN pin.


SIN PIN