Reducing the size of my project

Hi all,

Im pretty new to electronics and am attempting to make a circuit that drives a number of LEDs. I'll try to explain it as i haven't quite mastered Fritzing yet.

I have the Arduino driving 3 74HC595 shift registers which i'm using to switch 20 transistors (only one will be switched at a time). Each of these transistors are switching a bank of up to 5 LEDSs, wired in series which are powered off 14.4volts (4 x 18650 batteries.)

As you can imagine, my breadboard is pretty rammed, 3x74HC5959, 20 resistors into the 20 transistors and each bank of 5 leds will possible have a resistor in series. The LEDs will eventually not be on the board, but id love to be able to reduce the amount of resistors and transistors that im currently using.

Effectively im driving multiple 14.4v circuits of LEDs from the 74HC595s - is there a better way?

Hope this makes sense as i'm pretty new to this.

Thanks

Mark

If LED current is <= 150mA...

TPIC6B595 (ebay).
Replaces the 74HC595, base resistors, and transistors.
Works the same as a 74HC595.
Leo..

I'll try to explain it as i haven't quite mastered Fritzing yet.

Don't bother with Fritzing. A hand drawn schematic is much better.

Wawa:
If LED current is <= 150mA...

TPIC6B595 (ebay).
Replaces the 74HC595, base resistors, and transistors.
Works the same as a 74HC595.
Leo..

Perfect thanks!!

jremington:
Don't bother with Fritzing. A hand drawn schematic is much better.

Fritzing is actually capable of creating proper schematics (evidence: Post #211 here), it's just that most people don't use it so it causes of vicious cycle of new people seeing the horrendous breadboard view used and using that themselves.