Im currently creating an art project which will use 4 arduino boards. One will be compiling data and sending it through the transmitter to three megas which will use the signals to activate individual LED Lights. However I don't understand how to use the transmitters, can anyone suggest anything.
Also does anyone know how to figure out a value say 100 and then send signals to all the pins upto 100 i.e. 1-100
One will be compiling data and sending it through the transmitter to three megas which will use the signals to activate individual LED Lights.
So, whatever radio you select should be able to support a one-to-many (sender-->listeners) scenario. A very inexpensive radio for short-range (outward to 30-100 feet inside based on electrical noise, etc.) is the RF12B. There is lots and lots of Arduino code on the Internet for these units. I just got some in from China for 5 for $14 and that included shipping.
The more normal use is probably the transmitter sending to one listener and then sending to another listener and to another, etc. This can be done in many ways, but I think the simple way would be to send a known character that is non-numeric, such as a "*" or ">" to start your protocol, then send a numeric pin# and then send the command- let's say "ON" or "OFF" on even simpler is to send "X" for On and "Y" for Off. But you get the idea. If you are doing PWM to the LEDs on the Pins, then you need to come up with a protocol that handles the % that you want the PWM to deliver, or said another way, the step-size of the PWM value.
The takeaway here is that you can build your own protocol chain, use ACK to let the transmitter know you got the packet with a correct checksum, and do it all in ASCII so that it is easily debugged and understandable.
Ray
Check the virtualWire library.