DIY LED Chaser Effect

[lamborgini8]

Anyone ever built their own LED chaser effect?

I just came across this
http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/06/15/led-chaser/
which looks pretty cool so I was wondering how hard they would be to build or if I could modify one to have 8x8 instead of one single row.

Any ideas? It will give a use for the LEDS I have laying around.

[stanwax]

They are likely done with a microcontroller but you can do a simple (up to 10) led chase effect with a 4017 chip (I first used one of these in about 1979), with some diodes you can make the night rider back and forth effect limited to 5 leds though

Rob

[badger1666]

i did build one once i hacked a disco light controller and converted it to switch 12v instead of 240v i then built four 10m long super bright multi colour led chaser bars
that i fitted down the side of a dance floor at ground level that was a heap of fun to make the only downside to it was soldering 250 leds and resistors

[lamborgini8]

My idea is to make a sort of diagonal chase effect.

Sort of:
/OOO
O/OO
OO/O
OOO/

With each LED chasing to the right hand side or the left hand side.

[keeperx]

http://books.google.com/books?id=CvL...sult#PPA319,M1

[tocket]

I have built two chasers, the first was simply with a 4017 decade counter and a 555 to generate the clock pulse. The second was microcontroller based, using a TLC5940 to get more PWM outputs from the arduino.

If you want to go the microcontroller route I can recommend the arduino. It is programmed in a C/C++-based language and generally very easy to use. You just write code in their IDE, hook the board up to a USB port and upload the program. Depending on what arduino board you use, you have different numbers of outputs. The "standard" duemilanove has 14 I/O-pins, of which 6 have PWM capability. You can extend the number of output using various components, but for driving LEDs I would recommend the TLC5940. This PWM controller already has a library written for the arduino, which makes it easy to use. Each TLC5940 has 16 PWM pins, so you could fully control a 8x8 matrix using 4 TLC5940.

I'm currently writing code for the arduino and TLC5940 for a 15W RGB LED moodlight project. In theory each of the 5 LEDs can produce over 1 trillion different colors. Overkill perhaps.

[Psi]

yeah, i think the arduino uses an ATmega mcu, i can also recommend ATmega microcontrollers.
I normally just use the atmega IC directly rather than a prototyping board like the arduino, but if you want something quick and easy to use the arduino should do all ya want.