Hi all, I have come across this project and think its pretty smart. Has anyone tried anything like it with an arduino? What would be the best approach?
Hi
The narrator of that video does a great job of explaining how he's done it, and an almost direct use of his method will be possible using an Arduino.
My first thoughts on doing this would be that the main loop of the sketch will be running the LED array animation. Its job will be to fade the tail so that over time the "trail" left by the bright LED fades away, and if the bright LED doesn't move eventually the tail shrinks to nothing. An interrrupt routine set on CHANGE of the input (the PC's HDD activity LED) simply tells the animation to start/stop the movement of the animation such that it spins when the LED is on, and pauses in one place when it's off.
On an Arduino Uno only 6 of the pins are capable of PWM so you'll need to use something external (a TLC5940 say, which has an Arduino library which is handy) to drive the 12 in his example. I've not used one, but scanning the data sheet they appear to be SPI so very straightforward to hook up.
Sounds like you have a project on your hands
Geoff