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1

Hello,

I haven't fully introduced myself. Im James, I have no skills of electric engineering. So please bare with me. Im trying to make a Medium Project. I am wanting to make a deadmau5 head. Like the video below. The parts I need help in is Parts required and some information on how to hook this up. I talked to couple of people on a IRC, But they said to go on here and ask for help or another website. I choose this website because the people who made the arduino. So just help me list the items that are required. I forgot to mention that I have already made a head using this tutorial - http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-your-own-Deadmau5-mouse-head-helmet/. Thanks for the help, Hope to hear an answer.

Thanks, James

2

So please bare with me.

Never on a first date.

3

I have no skills of electric engineering.

I am sorry but what makes you think you have a hope in hell of making something like this with no skills?

The reason why this is impressive is that it is not something you can knock up in an afternoon, it takes skill and a large budget.

4

1.) I said please. 2.) I have a large budget, Price don't matter. 3.) I have some skills, Just never with a arduino.

5

well in that case I'd like to help
if you email me some more details I'll see if I can do it
cheers
Mike

6

mmcp42:
well in that case I'd like to help
if you email me some more details I'll see if I can do it
cheers
Mike

Cool, I PMed you my email.

7

I will not bare (undress) with you. I may, however, bear with (suffer) you :slight_smile:

If you have the budget, the soldering part is not super hard. You need to make sure that you can control the LEDs in the way that you need, and drive enough current to do that (probably the hardest part).
You also need lumiwire for the outlines.

So, that looks like at least a 32x32 array of LEDs (smaller out towards the edges.) That makes for ~1,000 LEDs that you need to address to draw one picture. That's a lot of separately addressable latches, and a lot of current -- 10 mA each times 1,000 LEDs is 10 amps of power! Also, it looks like each of those LEDs is actually multi-colored, which doubles or triples the number of contacts.

So, the hardest part is going to be switching 3,000 LEDs on/off within a dozen milliseconds for each "frame" update. I would look at something like a large number of shift registers, and driving them perhaps 8 in parallel for higher bandwidth, and then a set of latches all with a single trigger. If you want to approximate levels with "hand-rolled" PWM, you need to do it even faster.

Separately, you need to generate the image. If that's 1000 RGB pixels, even with just 5 levels per R,G, and B (one byte per pixel), that's 60 kilobytes per second of data that needs to go into the Arduino, which is 10x more than you can drive through a single serial port. Thus, you'll need to figure out some other way to get the data into the device to drive the LEDs, or reduce frame rate, or resolution, or compression, or all three. It's not clear that the oomph is actually there in the Arduino chip to quite get there -- you'd certainly need a lot of optimization. (The similar-powered PIC that was used for that head has 35 outputs, and thus can drive 32 bits plus strobe all at once)

This should give you enough to Google for. I suggest you start with something smaller, like perhaps an 8x8 LED array, driven using shift registers and latches. Once you have that working, you can scale it up!

8

jwatte:
I will not bare (undress) with you. I may, however, bear with (suffer) you :slight_smile:

If you have the budget, the soldering part is not super hard. You need to make sure that you can control the LEDs in the way that you need, and drive enough current to do that (probably the hardest part).
You also need lumiwire for the outlines.

So, that looks like at least a 32x32 array of LEDs (smaller out towards the edges.) That makes for ~1,000 LEDs that you need to address to draw one picture. That's a lot of separately addressable latches, and a lot of current -- 10 mA each times 1,000 LEDs is 10 amps of power! Also, it looks like each of those LEDs is actually multi-colored, which doubles or triples the number of contacts.

So, the hardest part is going to be switching 3,000 LEDs on/off within a dozen milliseconds for each "frame" update. I would look at something like a large number of shift registers, and driving them perhaps 8 in parallel for higher bandwidth, and then a set of latches all with a single trigger. If you want to approximate levels with "hand-rolled" PWM, you need to do it even faster.

Separately, you need to generate the image. If that's 1000 RGB pixels, even with just 5 levels per R,G, and B (one byte per pixel), that's 60 kilobytes per second of data that needs to go into the Arduino, which is 10x more than you can drive through a single serial port. Thus, you'll need to figure out some other way to get the data into the device to drive the LEDs, or reduce frame rate, or resolution, or compression, or all three. It's not clear that the oomph is actually there in the Arduino chip to quite get there -- you'd certainly need a lot of optimization. (The similar-powered PIC that was used for that head has 35 outputs, and thus can drive 32 bits plus strobe all at once)

This should give you enough to Google for. I suggest you start with something smaller, like perhaps an 8x8 LED array, driven using shift registers and latches. Once you have that working, you can scale it up!

Thanks for spoon-feeding me with your knowledge. I have a question do you think it really is 3,000 RGB LEDS? or 1,000?

9

It is 1,000 LEDs, but those LEDs are probably of the RGB variety, which have 3 separate inputs, so they "look" like 3 separate LEDs each to the controller side. Thus, you need 3,000 latch outputs, but only put in 1,000 discrete "sources of light."
Example components that work like this include:
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/CLVBA-FKA-CAEDH8BBB7A363/CLVBA-FKA-CAEDH8BBB7A363CT-ND/2650500 (surface mount, $360/1000)
and:
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/WP154A4SUREQBFZGW/754-1492-ND/2261457 (through-hole, $700/1000)

I'm telling you, though, if I were to build this, I'd be pretty scared :slight_smile: Especially the power needs. I'm hoping this isn't a wearable item, because that would be one toasty electric hat :slight_smile: (Not to mention bulky batteries)

10

1.) I said please.

Yes that is why I said sorry.
Look at this project of mine:-
http://www.thebox.myzen.co.uk/Hardware/Hexome.html
It has 64 RGB LEDs, look at the wiring. You are proposing something with 1000 LEDs that is my project times 15. The design challenges alone are formidable. Getting an arduino to multiplex that large a matrix is fanciful and the construction effort doesn't bare thinking about.

Mind you you can do the ears with EL wire
http://www.elwire.com/

11

jwatte:
I will not bare (undress) with you. I may, however, bear with (suffer) you :slight_smile:

If you have the budget, the soldering part is not super hard. You need to make sure that you can control the LEDs in the way that you need, and drive enough current to do that (probably the hardest part).
You also need lumiwire for the outlines.

So, that looks like at least a 32x32 array of LEDs (smaller out towards the edges.) That makes for ~1,000 LEDs that you need to address to draw one picture. That's a lot of separately addressable latches, and a lot of current -- 10 mA each times 1,000 LEDs is 10 amps of power! Also, it looks like each of those LEDs is actually multi-colored, which doubles or triples the number of contacts.

So, the hardest part is going to be switching 3,000 LEDs on/off within a dozen milliseconds for each "frame" update. I would look at something like a large number of shift registers, and driving them perhaps 8 in parallel for higher bandwidth, and then a set of latches all with a single trigger. If you want to approximate levels with "hand-rolled" PWM, you need to do it even faster.

Separately, you need to generate the image. If that's 1000 RGB pixels, even with just 5 levels per R,G, and B (one byte per pixel), that's 60 kilobytes per second of data that needs to go into the Arduino, which is 10x more than you can drive through a single serial port. Thus, you'll need to figure out some other way to get the data into the device to drive the LEDs, or reduce frame rate, or resolution, or compression, or all three. It's not clear that the oomph is actually there in the Arduino chip to quite get there -- you'd certainly need a lot of optimization. (The similar-powered PIC that was used for that head has 35 outputs, and thus can drive 32 bits plus strobe all at once)

This should give you enough to Google for. I suggest you start with something smaller, like perhaps an 8x8 LED array, driven using shift registers and latches. Once you have that working, you can scale it up!

You mentioned a 32x32 array of LEDs, Well would this work out as good? 32x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 4mm Pitch : ID 607 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits. LED[] = [1,2,3,4];

Yes that is why I said sorry.
Look at this project of mine:-
http://www.thebox.myzen.co.uk/Hardware/Hexome.html
It has 64 RGB LEDs, look at the wiring. You are proposing something with 1000 LEDs that is my project times 15. The design challenges alone are formidable. Getting an arduino to multiplex that large a matrix is fanciful and the construction effort doesn't bare thinking about.

Mind you you can do the ears with EL wire
http://www.elwire.com/

Sorry, I didn't read that quite good. Thanks for the advice on elwire. One less thing to worry about!

12

Smudge:
You mentioned a 32x32 array of LEDs, Well would this work out as good? 32x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 4mm Pitch : ID 607 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits. LED[] = [1,2,3,4];

If you need a "head" that is flat, square, 5"x5" in size, and only uses 2 mA per LED (thus not very bright), then that seems like it would work (assuming you can solve the "how to transfer images to display" problem.)