I am brand new to this entire LED business, although I'm happy to dig in and do a ton of research as needed. With that said, I'm hoping some of the experts here can perhaps get me going in the right direction first.
Here's my technical challenge and goal. If I have a 20x20 grid, is it possible to insert a single LED into each box (cell) and then easily select which color each LED/box is? Is it possible to have basically a graphical interface where you can individually select a cell on the grid (really selecting a specific LED) and assign a color to it as opposed to pre-programming it to be a certain color when a program is run?
I hope this makes sense and I greatly appreciate any advice. Thanks,
Scott
The same is being done in 3D grids (look for "LED cube", you can find complete schematics and code online - 10x10x10 cubes make for 1000 LEDs already) so a 400-LED 2D grid should be easier.
Iirc part of the trick is to not try to light each individual LED at the same time, but flash them so fast (address one at a time) that it looks like they are on.
Hi Scott, as you probably knew, there's more than one way to skin vermin!
With all your study time, how much will you need to spend on code? Do you know the do-many-things-at-once method?
As for your grid of leds, there is WS2811/2812 RGB led strip that lets you address every led (has a chip) in the strip.
The strip comes with 60 to 144 led+chip per meter (different led sizes) that you can cut into sections as needed.
Another way is to get led driver chips that daisy-chain and connect the leds to those. The first chip connects to the controller SPI bus (512KB/s fast) and the next driver connects to the first, etc.
Another way is like that but with cheaper shift registers that can't source as much power total per 8 outputs, when all are ON you get about 6mA each which is still lit.
With the shift register or led driver chips, you command any one led ON, it stays powered until changed. That's as opposed to a matrix where only one led is actually ON at any instant but persistence of vision makes them all look lit.
RGB led has 3 color leads and one that is either common ground or common power. IMO. common ground/anode are better.
With 20x20x3 connections just for the leds, consider the WS2812 RGB led strips will save you a LOT of soldering.