I think if I design mine well and I don't just have the screw connectors down one side, instead having them spread across 2 or 3 sides I could probably get it down to 10cm x 10cm which is only $18.90 for 5. Assuming that leaves enough space for 20 to 24 transistors.

There we go, very simple test.

4 LEDs addressed from one shift register, 4 LEDs addressed from the other.

I wonder of that will work with the PWM frequency library.

Is it the power supply (if you're using it) that has fixed the flickering?

:) Can you make it play a song?

Nooo. Really no. Don't make me want to spend even more money designing my own PCBs as well. Yes, I'd love to. I've already spent too much. Lots of little spends adds up.

Do all 5/10/whatever boards need to be the same?

ShiftPWM allows you to choose the PWM frequency so the other library isn't needed.

It seems anything over "75" stops any flickering. I had it at 150.

I'll try 3 shift registers tomorrow.

Currently yes, but I'd have to hand code it and I think I'd go insane. Next job is improving the software. A lot.

I can wait til the software is better. Can you play the theme from Project X on the Amiga?

Aha. Handy. Is 150Hz enough with them dimmed? Think it's more noticeable in a dark room too. Lots of useful libraries for the Arduino.

I'm still waiting for my two Nanos. I have a USBASP programmer which I'll use with my Pro Mini for now. Also waiting for a FTDI adapter which will be an easier connection than the USBASP. Gonna have a play with the nRF24L01 transceivers. Did you add a capacitor to the power connections on yours?

I asked on the Arduino forums about the bits in that LED controller. They are FETs and rated at 2.8A. Must be heat dissipating pads.

If you give me a midi file of it.

I will try and find one and give it to you (YJ)

I wired up my LED strip the other night using a BC547. I'm sure I had it connected right but the LEDs didn't respond to the PWM unless I swapped the transistor around the other way. Any ideas if my circuit is correct?

Different transistors definitely have different pinouts in case you looked at a generic schematic.
 

I got the pin layout from the eBay listing so it should be right. And I used the same ones with my clock with no problems.

I'll confess to not really knowing anything about transistors.

Not good enough :P

Turns out the eBay listing had it wrong. The tranny should be the other way round.

I had another play with my LED strip using all 3 colours this time. I had a couple of issues with the PWM library. Pin 11 would only go high or low, nothing in between. Pin 3 (same timer as pin 11) didn't turn on at the same value as the other pins but did output PWM.

I started reading about manually setting the registers. So confusing. I kind of understand what needs to be done just now how.

3 shift registers now working.

15 "LED" PWM outputs across 3 shift registers to check they're all communicating correctly. Max will be 24 covering all timezones.



Mains adapter seems to work well too. Initially I thought it was causing issues but I forgot to ground the DC-in to the Arduino.

A BH1750 light intensity board arrived too. Whilst it works great I'm not sure I like what it gives me. The LDR on an analog in pin gives a range of 0-1023, where the outputs seem to make sense, but with the BH1750 you get between 0 - 65534, with daylight only being around 100, now in the late afternoon with the light on it gives ~50. I could only get it to max out at 54612 by shining the flash on my phone at it. An LDR would probably be easier to fit somewhere too.

Cool. Lots of wires there :D

I kind of worked out PWM frequencies without using that library. I tried settings the bits of the two registers myself but worked out something wrong, not sure what. Found a website with a list of values to use and set them.

Then I just use analogWrite with the correct bits set and I have a PWM frequency of 3921Hz. It'll be half that if I used an 8MHz device in the atual install though.

And it looks like I can actually get all the pins I want to work correctly.

Have you got the RGB strips working with the arduino now?