Is this possible? LED Bar display driver

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Software Interfacing
#1

Hello,

I hope that I am posting in the correct place but here goes.

I have been asked to write an application that calculates if a car is late or early based on a target average speed and one second GPS updates - so far so good. I need to have a method of telling the driver to either maintain, increase or reduce speed. My initial thoughts are to use a row of LEDs fixed to the dash board and controlled by a robust laptop computer.

I have been searching the internet for a method of controlling a LED bar display from an application written in RunRev Transcript. Am I correct in thinking that the Arduino board could be used to control say five or seven LEDs and would someone give me an idea of how difficult is it to control the device from software? Please feel free to direct me to any papers that may answer my questions.

Thanks for reading,

Simon

#2

Yes this is very simple with the arduino using as many LEDs as you want. You application should talk to a serial port and send numbers. The arduino will then pick up the numbers and you write a sketch to convert them into how mant LEDs you want on. It is very close to this:- http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/KnightRider

#3