I’ve been reading through all the documentation for the El Escudo shield for the Arduino and I still have a bunch of questions that I hope you guys can help me with. I’ll give you a rundown of my project so that you might be able to better advise me as well.
Project background: I have a piece of furniture that I want to edge light with El wire. The strips vary in length from 3ft to 8ft max. The total amount of el wire in the project reaches 25ft in length. I would like to synchronize a light show to music which would be pre-programmed and played back on a starting cue.
1: I’m pretty sure the Arduino Uno has 6 digital outputs that support PWM signals, does that limit the number of EL channels I can independently dim with the El Escudo to 6 instead of 8?
2: I took a look at the library and it looked like it was missing a function to set the brightness level to anything other than full on or full off and keep it stable. Is there a way to set the brightness of a specific wire to anything other than 0 or 100% and keep it at that brightness level?
3: I am aware that I can only illuminate one (maybe two) wires at a time. Will the overall brightness of my entire project be noticeably dimmer than when I am driving one channel at a time?
4: Unless I choose to not connect certain header pins, will all of my digital IO be used by this board when I stack it onto the Arduino?
5: Someone mentioned using capacitors to balance the brightness levels of segments with different lengths. What considerations must I make for a project like mine where segments can vary from 3-8ft?
6: As an alternative option (not using the El Escudo), could I use relays to activate/deactivate independent inverters for each segment of EL wire (sacrificing dimming for the ability to manually control more than one strand at a time with equal brightnesses)? Is there a potential risk of harming the inverters with rapid state changes from on to off?