First DIY usable LED ring on the market?

[Mayhem]

how much are they going to retail for you think?

MSRP is $14.95. I believe this is what SparkFun will be charging.

[DjNecro]

Faux PWM eh?

Hmmm.... That may be a bit of a trick to get working efficiently... There's only so much CPU time available on atmega's But I will certainly attempt it... First though that comes to mind would be to pulse the OE line to get your duty cycles... Another method would be to keep track of the number of cycles and zero out the display every X cycles...

MMMMM PLAY TIME!

You may also want to investigate the tlc5940's... they offer built-in PWM control, but they are quite a bit more costly... $1.76@3000 or $4 each...

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folder...t/tlc5940.html

[DjNecro]

Ok... well... ha!

PWM was easier than I expected... I used the Output Enable line (OE) hooked up to one of the atmega's PWM pins... After that it was as simple of an analogWrite() to set the brightness... A couple of proof of concept videos below... I hope to have a midi related demo online tonight sometime...

The first video is a pure proof of concept... will pwm work at all using the OE line... Result: YEPPERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKgEsfhYg9Q

The second video takes it further to ensure the pwm timing doesn't interfere with the display timing... Result: YEPPERS! While the flashy demo isn't suitable to see it all the time, you can see that it works without interrupting the animations...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnO7dgDSUyo

Stay tuned for more

[DjNecro]

Here's the first test of using traktors midi beat phase output to pulse the leds on beat...

Let me know what you think... I'm not all that happy yet... I'd prefer to use the low eq levels, but traktor doesn't provide that output as far as I can find...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdUaca4MYGM

[Mayhem]

For anyone who is interested in getting some of these, they are now in stock and available for purchase at Sparkfun:

Red LED: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10408
Blue LED: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10407
Green LED: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10409

Thanks for the support!

[DjNecro]

Well here it is! I tested it as best as I could. All of my testing was with 3 ring boards chained together, but you can address any ring independently, and with proper config (one line) it should work just fine with fewer or more (up to a limit of 255, or the speed of the processor)... Full commenting has not been finished, but there should be enough for now. Zero documentation, however the examples should be fairly self explanitory. Check the header file for all available methods.

Install:

1. If it doesn't already exist, create a 'libraries' folder underneath your main sketch folder (the one with ALL your sketches in it)
2. Unzip the archive into your existing or newly created libraries folder (you should have libraries/ledRings/ when you're done)
3. Open or Restart your arduino editor. You should now see the ledRing entry under File->Examples
4. Play and experiment! (this is the best part)

Support:

• Until I get a website setup for the library just post here or PM me with your questions (I would prefer you to post here, as it can help many more people)

License: Released into the Public Domain, do whatever the hell you want with it, just please credit me.

First Release. Version: .5 beta

• Supports multiple ring boards chained together.
• Supports PWM brightness control (very little testing).
• Currently uses TIMER2 at approximately 500Hz.

3 Examples included:

• Encoder Demo (Three patterns responding to the encoder value cycled by pushing encoder button)
• MIDI Demo (LED Arc's respond to CC's 1, 2, 3 on channel 15; Bottom LED's respond to Note ON/OFF's 51, 52, 53 on channel 15
• LED Ring Demo (Flashy LED light show)

Download Link: ledRing Arduino Library v0.5b

ATTN Developers: I have the source for the library in an SVN repository, if you would like to check out the source, let me know and I will open it to the public... If you want to contribute, also let me know and I'll setup a branch and an account for you to help improve things

[MiL0]

nice one man

I've had a few commitments that I've had to attend to but as of tonight I've got spare time to work on my DIY controller and Arduino stuff so I'll definitely have a look at your code

just out of interest, whereabouts in the world are you based?

[Mayhem]

Great work DjNecro! I'll be testing it out here sometime this week. Let me know if you need a place to host the Library.

[DjNecro]

Thanks

I have plenty of space for the hosting... it's the lack of time However I think i'll host it with google code, since it gives me the basic site required, as well as good issue tracking...


MiL0: I am in Southern Ontario, Canada..

[DjNecro]

The project now has a home over at google code... Documentation/commenting will be worked on today. Along with demo videos showing the wiring and results of the demos..

http://ledrings.googlecode.com