Newbie - Which board and other parts?

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
8
  1. Okay, you don't want to overspend: get an ardweeny, $10.
  2. You have 8 banks of 5 LEDs each.
  3. What do you have for a voltage source, and how many amps?

Lets assume you have them all wired in series, each LED drops 2.2V, with a 12V with a current limit resister sized for 20mA, so 56 ohm. Do the math for what you actually buy.

Then you just need a driver that can handle the 12V for you - two 7406s would do that, each can handle 6 banks.

Or, you wire the LEDs in each bank in parallel with its own current limit resister, and sink the resulting 100mA with transister per bank, so you need 8 MOSFETs such as
http://se.mouser.com/ProductDetail/NXP-Semiconductors/PSMN035-150P127/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvKM5ialpXrmoKPBF94BAPg

See this thread also, similar is being done but for 8 LEDs/bank.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1292349407/11#11