Hello,
I am a Sunday School teacher and was attempting to come up with a creative way in teaching the Books of the Bible. I have a buddy with a CNC Router, so my thought was to have him take a piece of oak, 2' x 3' and have him carve in all the book names along with a 19mm hole at each name for a LED push button. As the student would go through the books, if in order, the LED would latch. If an incorrect was chosen, then they would all drop out. As I am thinking of this, I am only familiar with AB and Click, this would take a huge, expensive rack as there would be a minimum of 66 inputs and 66 outputs.
Not knowing anything about Arduino, is this an application that would be possible with a Arduino set up?
Welcome to the forum.
Pretend that we have no idea what AB and CLICK are and what they do.
Please read this:
Then explain in clear plain English what you want to do (not how to do it) and we may be able to help.
Allen/ Bradley and Click PLC's.
Are you looking for reading sixty-six buttons and controlling sixty-six LEDs?
Yes, is that possible?
Yes, it is possible. Actuallly may not be all that difficult depeding on the programming.
Please describe, in detail, what the buttons and lightsare to do.
The buttons...
The LEDs... I would use WS2812... either in their square, 5mm x 5mm shape or in 4-pin, 5mm, round LED shape.
With an Arduino Mega2560 and some GPIO (general purpose input/output) expansion, it is possible to use 70+ independent buttons and 70+ independent LEDs on a single Arduino. Through some techniques for using multiple buttons or LEDs with less GPIO pins, a regular Arduino Uno or Nano can provide the required control.
Edit: I reread the opening post and realized I misunderstood the design description. A single board with 66 (or more) buttons with integral LED with the Arduino providing the desired operation is very doable.
Those are usually a good choice for individually controlling many LEDs. For this particular project, the person has buttons with a LED in each button and an installation plan for the buttons. The additional hardware and software complexity of the WS2812 LEDs being added has no benefit for the project.
Wiring the buttons and the button LEDs into matrixes would work well for this. A 10 by 7 or 9 by 8 matrix (17 control pins each) will handle the required 66 elements. For the LED control, a LED driver capable of running a single matrix larger than an 8 by 8 would be easier than programming the Arduino to drive them directly. The HT16K33 (16 by 8) would work well.
What order do you have planned for the book names? Would you like the order of the book names to be adjustable?
Sorry. Ignore the APA106/WS2812"LED" style. The LED buttons will work. 66 LEDs = 20mA per LED so 1320mA will be drawn if all LEDs are on.
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Yes, this is a perfect application for arduino, and it will cost less than a single Click PLC.
The most I/O you can get from a single arduino is 54, but there are techniques to extend that.
A basic Arduino nano or clone will suffice, along with a handful of I/O expander boards.
Eight of these will provide 128 I/Os. They have 25mA drive output so that should be enough for your LEDs.
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