Hey all - bought myself a mega last year for a halloween project. Its that time of year again (for me it is, anyway!)
I’d classify myself as a newbie with electronics, but pretty intermediate with controlling an arduino. I’ve a programming background, and what I made the arduino do last year was pretty amazing if you ask me. But, like I said, a bit of a newb with electronics (transistors, resistors, how they all work, etc).
So I’m looking for guidance.
I am building a scarecrow, and I want the inside of the head to light up as if it were flaming inside. My idea, which I got from someone on a halloween forum, was to build a LED array… a circular disc with a ring of 8 red LED’s and an inner ring of 8 yellow or amber LEDs. He had a video of something similar doing a chase pattern, the red’s going one way, the yellows going the other, you add in some randomization, and it looked pretty close to a flickering flame.
I have a mega, I have enough pins, I COULD just wire 16 LEDs. But then, I dont learn anything. What’s the fun in that? Add to that the fact the arduino will also control the motion sensors, the servos, a winch motor, and a few other doodads - so - lets not blow all the pins at once, right?
I did some googling on LED arrays and found a few designs. Almost all of them were panned by others as being a poor design. I saw mention of other control boards… a MAX7221 and a… um… lost the link…
What would be the best way to go? I may build the 16 LED array and its not good enough, and I want 32… or I may want to add another color… so I want to maybe be able to expand if need be. Should I build something myself (I’m not a TOTAL noob, using guidance online, last year I built an 8 channel relay board to control my props, so I’ve got the basics of that, and soldering, etc), should I look into some array control board like the MAX, or…?
Any guidance is helpful. Just came across the LedControl page on the Arduino Playground, going to read that as I wait for responses.
Thanks all!