I've been doing some Arduino projects on and off for the past couple of years and I've just thought of a new one I'd like to try.
Basically, I want to do the "ambilight" but on a larger-scale than just behind my TV/monitor. My friend has these LEDs they installed all around the room (in the corner between the top of the walls and the ceiling) and I'd like to do this in an ambilight sort of way. So, instead of only having a 1m programmable strip I'd need quite a few metres...just to do an estimate now it's going to be about 20-25 metres.
I know I'll definitely need an external power source and I am a computer scientist by day so I'm fine the programming - what I'm confused on is how many LED strips I can attach to my Arduino Uno?
If the Uno isn't a good fit I'm fine with having to buy a more powerful arduino. Any suggestions?
Also, does anyone have any recommendations for LED strips? I've seen a few on Adafruit and Sparkfun but I'm not sure which would be the best.
To update them with a reasonable speed you might need an ARM processor. Also it needs 4,5 kB RAM just for the framebuffer. So no way to do that with an Uno. Go for a Teensy 3.1.
LED strip: APA102, WS2812B, WS2811 or WS2801 (cheap on Aliexpress)
But I strongly recommend to start with a way smaller setup first. Probably like 3m strip.
Write your framegrabbing software (or adapt an existing one), design and implement a protocol for the communication with the MC, encounter the power, wiring and timing issues and after tackling all that scale up the number of leds.
Can't we just use some transistors to control led strip, of course with transistors capable of more current (if there is) and an extrenal power supply? All arduino has to do is control the signals to transistors.
Also I don't think all leds draw the same current.
I've seen a rgb strip with 30leds/m drawing 700mA=0.7A
So if you have 25m of this rgb strip with 30leds/m then you'll need 25x0.7A=17.5A on full bright,white color.
So we obviously need to control every single led seperately, not just the complete strip.
I´ve worked with many different led controllers in many different projects and all I ever saw were leds consuming 20mA per color channel. So 60mA for every single RGB led.
You're right, I missed controlling every single led. So my link is irrelevant. Sorry about that.
For the strip, I can't provide a link I've seen it on the tag on the shelf in local store. Maybe they misprinted it I don't know.