Noted electronics writer Forrest M. Mims, III, has proposed a puzzler. How would you design a passive, automatic sensor to accurately tell the difference between LED and incandescent headlights when viewing the light from a distance? Check out his puzzler page at Jameco and read his fictional scenario requiring such a device and possible solutions.
Category Archives: LEDs
Ringo3 LED clock assembly
Community at it’s best, one forum member helping another. Matseng sent a Rino3 clock PCB to Arup, which he populated even before the Matseng got a chance to build his own. They are now debugging it together: Few days ago I received one ringo3 PCB from forum member masteng. It’s having 60+60+12 LEDs (ss,mm,hh). The […]
Bluetooth controlled RGB LED strip
Hmms shared his Bluetooth controlled RGB LED strip project. Atmega8 microcontroller with the Arduino bootloader controls the LEDs, while the Bluetooth communication is handled via a cheap serial to Bluetooth module. I wanted the strip to be Controllable via a PC or a Mobile Phone.So I decided to make my own RGB LED strip Controller […]
Driving 4 8×8 LED matrices via the HT1632C and an Arduino
Luca wrote a tutorial on how to drive four 8×8 LED matrices connected to the HT1632C IC via the Arduino. The HT1632C is a LED driver IC capable of controlling 256 LEDs. It uses a custom 3pin serial interface. The Arduino sketch for the demonstration displayed in the video is available.
LED heart using PWM fading
With grandma’s birthday fast approaching Chris from Pyroelectro decided to combine fading LEDs and a heart to He writes: “The concept for this small birthday present was to create a small heart shape with red LEDs and then to draw a heart shape underneath it on the PCB as a backdrop. Then a small processor […]
Tuitwall displays Tweets on LED matrix
tuitwall is a project that will allow you to show Tweets in a LED matrix. It’s based on an Arduino, an ethernet shield, a LED matrix that has its controller, a Holtek HT1632C and a PHP backend that interfaces with Twitter. Its designer Santiago Reig explains: “The webpage, written in PHP, allows a user to […]
4000 series CMOS 24-hour clock
Easton Elliott made this 4000-series CMOS 24-hour clock as a final high school electronics class project. Rather than using a MCU he chose to use CMOS IC’s including a 4060 and 4013 to generate the 1Hz signal. The writeup and documentation can be found on Easton’s geekness website. Via the contact form.
LED audio frequency analyzer using Stellaris Launchpad
Jordan is a software developer for Texas Instruments Stellaris team. While he’s not working on the Launchpad project, he was able to snag a rev0 board a few months ago, which led to this project. He informs us he’ll be updating his blog with a few other project ideas in the future, and releasing the […]
Theater light show project
Here is a light show project from North Street Labs built for the Hippodrome. They built 7 large LED panels that are controlled trough an RS-485 link. Each panel has 86 RGB LEDs and an Arduio controlling them. The build is well documented if you want to try this at home. Via Hacked Gadgets.
ExpeditInvaders: IKEA Expedit shelf modified with RGB LEDs
Michu shared his IKEA Expedit shelf RGB LED mod ExpeditInvaders. He connected 40 RGB LED modules and a keyboard to an Arduino to make a color changing Ikea bookcase: I just finished my project “ExpeditInvaders”, a spiced up Ikea shelf! I added 40 LED modules to it and glued a keyboard on the bottom of […]
Levitating LED combines wireless power transfer + magnetic levitation
Chris Rieger is an Electrical Engineering student from the University of Queensland Australia, and has been experimenting with wireless power transfer and magnetic levitation. After studying the work of Jeff Lieberman, Eric Taylor, and others, Chris fine tuned his design to combine these two technologies to achieve the results depicted in this video. Visit Chris […]
PixelController LED control software update
Michu made some improvements to the open source PixelController software. This app is intended to control various light-show drivers such as the Art-Net, Mini-DMX, LPD6803 and Seeedstudio’s Rainbowduino. I’m updating my PixelController software and did some major updates like an integrated GUI, Color Sets etc. Take a look at the Screenshot, the code is on […]
Binary Burst clock ticks away the time with LEDs
The Binary Burst clock shows the time with LEDs: The clock uses 3 LEDs on each spire to count up to 5 in binary. The hours are displayed by the middle LED in RED (Its a Red/Blue bicolor, the others are just blue). Video, and links to the board and code repository are included in […]
Arduino and TM1640 LED display modules
Tronixstuff has posted a detailed tutorial on using Arduino and TM1640 LED Display Modules. The Arduino library included allows you to display numeric and certain alphabet characters on the display using the TM1640.
Interfacing Arduino with an HP LED display from the ’70s
John demonstrates how to interface a vintage LED display with the Arduino. The display in question is a HP 5082-745 model, found in calculators, and other products from this manufacturer in the ’70s. Using the display is very easy – kudos to the engineers at HP for making a simple design that could be reusable […]
Verilog project: Binary to 7-segment display
DJ Delorie was looking for an excuse to learn about Verilog and CPLDs. So he coded up this binary to 7-segment display converter. He provides links to the source code and says this project fits into the Xilinx XC9572 (the same chip used in our Coolrunner-II CPLD breakout board. You can get our XC9572XL dev-board […]
LED produces 2.3x more light energy than electrical energy consumed
MIT physicists developed an LED that emits more light energy than the electrical energy consumed. These LEDs supplement electrical energy with heat from the surrounding environment. Unfortunately this has only been observed at very low power levels. The researchers chose a light-emitting diode with a small band gap, and applied such small voltages that it […]
App note: Soft-Start in LED lighting
Using constant current to drive LEDs is a good practice, but turning them on instantly can be dangerous for both the LED and the LED driver. Harmful spikes are generated when large currents are instantaneously turned on. This app note from Maxim describes how to soft start LEDs to increase overall lifetime and performance. An […]
Processing + Arduino + touchOSC
Adrianmb from Make-a-tronik has written a tutorial on how to how to communicate between your mobile device (Android / iOS device) or a PC and Arduino through a protocol known as OSC (Open Sound Control). The project uses Processing, Arduino, and an LED RGB device. TouchOSC must be installed on the computer or iDevice you […]
28C3: Driving high power LEDs
Here’s a brief video from the recently concluded 28C3 hacker conference hosted by Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany. Jonathan Foote of rotormind.com covers some ways to drive high power LEDs without burning them up, including the latest technology current source circuits and ICs. This was one of the “lightning talks” which are are part […]