Hi All,
I've a detailed write-up of the build of my LED glowstaff at http://happyinmotion.livejournal.com/tag/mitochondrion. It uses an overclocked 40X1 to control eight PCA9625 drivers to control forty RGB LEDs to display over a hundred animated patterns.
In the write-up I've tried to share some of what I've learnt about putting together a project of this complexity. It's in eight parts, covering physical structure, how to do excessive things with a Picaxe when you've been a C programmer, LEDs and drivers and power and batteries, sensors, making PCBs, debugging & reliability, and how to do it better next time. Some of my ideas worked, some didn't (despite some very useful help from people on this forum), but hopefully my experiences will be informative. I made the usual rookie errors (not paying enough attention to batteries, trying to do way too much with a Picaxe) and probably some special mistakes all of my own. Anyway, it's been a fun project and, of course, the next version will be harder, better, faster, stronger.
I've a detailed write-up of the build of my LED glowstaff at http://happyinmotion.livejournal.com/tag/mitochondrion. It uses an overclocked 40X1 to control eight PCA9625 drivers to control forty RGB LEDs to display over a hundred animated patterns.
In the write-up I've tried to share some of what I've learnt about putting together a project of this complexity. It's in eight parts, covering physical structure, how to do excessive things with a Picaxe when you've been a C programmer, LEDs and drivers and power and batteries, sensors, making PCBs, debugging & reliability, and how to do it better next time. Some of my ideas worked, some didn't (despite some very useful help from people on this forum), but hopefully my experiences will be informative. I made the usual rookie errors (not paying enough attention to batteries, trying to do way too much with a Picaxe) and probably some special mistakes all of my own. Anyway, it's been a fun project and, of course, the next version will be harder, better, faster, stronger.