Fun Facts for the SparkFun RGB LED backpack

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
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Fun Facts for the SparkFun RGB LED backpack display:

  1. The current backpack firmware can handle not eight, but rather 255 colors.

  2. The forbidden color is 0x25 (dark grey). Attempting to send this color will cause the firmware to reconfigure the backpack daisy chain length.

  3. The firmware limits the daisy chain length to eight backpacks.

  4. It takes a minimum of 6.12 milliseconds to refresh the display because each of the 64 LED color values must be sent each time.

  5. Due to #4, the refresh rate is no higher than 163 Hz.

  6. The smiley face boot screen only appears in the first ten power cycles of each 256 run of power cycles.

  7. A rewrite of the firmware could significantly expand the capabilities of the unit: incremental updates, commanded diagnostics, font storage, and a larger color gamut.