I have been searching for a way to get about 40 or so led to flicker randomly. I came across a post here ( http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1192693288/6#6) that does 5, tested it out and it works how i would like mine to, just not as many leds. Is there an easy way to do this across 40 or so leds. The PWM across that many lights is what i am having a problem figuring out. Thanks
Ryan
Do these LED flickerings have to be independently controlled or can you get away with paralleling them up with others?
You can get true PWM control of up to 16 LEDs by using the TCL5940 chip, two of these will get you up to 32 LEDs. However, they are not too easy to use for a beginner. Do a search of this board to see what others have done with this chip.
Maybe a 555 timer?
You know, you can use a 555 timer with pwm
For just flickering I'd be looking at a matrix drive, you could probably get a few values of PWM, enough for a flickering effect.
looked over the datasheet, the 1 resister part is great, and it seems like it would be the way to go for a solution. BUT the hardware part is not the problem for me, i got the arduino to help me learn programming, ive have always been a hardware person and not a software. i can hack peoples code together to get it to do what i want, but dont even know where to start a original sketch to do something like this. Guess that is part of learning. Anybody tried something similar(even just 2 5940 hooked together) that would share some code. Thanks
Try looking here for ideas on how to talk to the chip:-
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1218174457/15
Especially see some of the links off this thread and look at the examples in the library.
Linking two together is simple, just add serial out of one device to serial in of the other, and common up the latches. Then just send twice the number of pulses to it before latching.
Thanks, was actually looking at that post when you posted a reply to mine. Looking at it still too. Lot of good information in there. Thanks for the help