Here’s just a simply awesome LED DIY project you can do for your home and impress your friends, learn how to make an animated LED brick wall! This system uses Arduino, I2C protocol, and PC application to control it. This would be wonderful if you could control it with your Android phone.
The total of 121 BlinkM’s are divided into 2 blocks: 1 block of 6 horizontal ‘strands’, and 1 block of 5 horizontal ‘strands’.
This is done because of the limitation of the I2C protocol/hardware. Each horizontal strand has it’s own I2C driver. I used
the NXP PCA9512AD for this. When the PC Application is opened, the user has the option of selecting the 2 COM
ports the Arduino’s are connected to. The the program is able to drive the ‘strands’ through the Arduino’s (with modified firmware).
The Arduino’s then drive the ‘strands’ through the I2C (NXP) drivers.
Besides looking cool with your custom animations, LEDs use barely any power at all, even leaving this on all day long probably use less energy than a single halogen bulb.
I will have to make my own soon.
