Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Parts have arrived
Over the past week, I received our wire, LED-wiz, Mosfets, optoisolator and our first RGB LED. I hooked up some blue LEDs to test the LED-wiz and everything is in working order. I'll be hooking up the RGB LED over the next couple days to test it. Hopefully I'll post a video so you can check out how it looks so far.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Some more details:
We will be using a USB Pulse width modulator (or PWM) to control the lights. These work by turning the lights on and off rapidly and in various increments to control the brightness of the lights. At the moment, the controller we're planning on using the LED-wiz by Groovy Game Gear. (Link) It supports 32 outputs with 48 levels of intensity on each output.
We will (probably) be using RGB LEDs as the actual lights. RGB LEDs consist of 3 separate LEDs: a red one, a blue one, and a green one. When combined with varying intensities we will be able to produce a very large number of colors. (110,592 different colors if we use the controller listed above.) I've ordered a 3w RGB LED from eBay to test to see if it'll be sufficient. (Link)
With 32 outputs, we'll be able to control up to 10 banks of RGB LEDs (as each bank takes up 3 outputs, one for each color.) That leaves us with 2 extra outputs. One will be used to control the power supply that will be used to power the LEDs. I'm not sure what we'll do with the last output.
The power supply will be controlled by putting an optoisolator across the green wire from the mother board connector to ground on a standard computer power supply. I purchased one from Mouser Electronics to test. (Link)
The LED controller supports up to 500mA of power to each bank when used with an external power supply. To get around this limitation I will be using MOSFETs to switch power to the LEDs one and off. I've purchased 3 from Mouser Electronics to test. (Link) The maximum power available for the LEDs will be limited by the current the MOSFET can support. The particular one I ordered supports up to 2.5A, which is 5 times as much as the controller will support.
I purchased a 1000' roll of 24AWG wire for wiring the controller to the mosfets. I will be purchasing wire to connect the power supply to the LEDs sometime in the future.
We will be using a USB Pulse width modulator (or PWM) to control the lights. These work by turning the lights on and off rapidly and in various increments to control the brightness of the lights. At the moment, the controller we're planning on using the LED-wiz by Groovy Game Gear. (Link) It supports 32 outputs with 48 levels of intensity on each output.
We will (probably) be using RGB LEDs as the actual lights. RGB LEDs consist of 3 separate LEDs: a red one, a blue one, and a green one. When combined with varying intensities we will be able to produce a very large number of colors. (110,592 different colors if we use the controller listed above.) I've ordered a 3w RGB LED from eBay to test to see if it'll be sufficient. (Link)
With 32 outputs, we'll be able to control up to 10 banks of RGB LEDs (as each bank takes up 3 outputs, one for each color.) That leaves us with 2 extra outputs. One will be used to control the power supply that will be used to power the LEDs. I'm not sure what we'll do with the last output.
The power supply will be controlled by putting an optoisolator across the green wire from the mother board connector to ground on a standard computer power supply. I purchased one from Mouser Electronics to test. (Link)
The LED controller supports up to 500mA of power to each bank when used with an external power supply. To get around this limitation I will be using MOSFETs to switch power to the LEDs one and off. I've purchased 3 from Mouser Electronics to test. (Link) The maximum power available for the LEDs will be limited by the current the MOSFET can support. The particular one I ordered supports up to 2.5A, which is 5 times as much as the controller will support.
I purchased a 1000' roll of 24AWG wire for wiring the controller to the mosfets. I will be purchasing wire to connect the power supply to the LEDs sometime in the future.
Hello!
Greetings,
I've set up this blog to show the world the project that we're working on.
Here's the premise. We have a living room with boring lighting. It's your basic "flip a switch to make the incandescent lights glow" type of thing. Considering the amount of free time we have, this simply isn't acceptable.
What's the dream? Light of any color controlled by a computer.
Stay tuned for details.
I've set up this blog to show the world the project that we're working on.
Here's the premise. We have a living room with boring lighting. It's your basic "flip a switch to make the incandescent lights glow" type of thing. Considering the amount of free time we have, this simply isn't acceptable.
What's the dream? Light of any color controlled by a computer.
Stay tuned for details.
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