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[on:]

Here is my latest experiment: http://blog.blinkenlight.net/2012/04/01/nightflight/. I used 4 Arduinos and 4 Blinkenlight shields to setup a helipad for indoor night flights. The interesting challenge is how to keep all 4 Arduinos in sync although all 20 Pins of each Arduino are already in use for driving a LED.

[Reply #1 on:]

The interesting challenge is how to keep all 4 Arduinos in sync although all 20 Pins of each Arduino are already in use for driving a LED.

There must be reason you haven't used any ShiftRegister's , Why is it so?

[Reply #2 on:]

Well, shift registers would have been the worst solution. Let's analyze what I did:

drive 80 LEDs through 8 phases. Each LED with a 1k resistor. If I would want to mass produce I could use some controller with 8 output pins plus internal RC oscillator. Actually even cheaper setup would do the trick.

If I wanted to use an Arduino this would still hold true.

However there are some points in favor of my current solution:

1) My blog is dedicated to the Blinkenlight Shield
2) I had 12 Blinkenlight Shields and 8 Arduinos lying around but no shift registers at hand.
3) The wiring for this setup is much simpler
4) It gives me the opportunity to fool around

[Reply #3 on:]

It looks good though, why don;t you think of adding some more fun stuff to it , like some sort of imagination in it like if the aircraft (i think it is RC only  ) comes in proximity to the PAD the led;s can show some Animations that will further attract people and would look very pretty and fun.

 

[Reply #4 on:]

Nice!