Hi everyone,
I work a lot with neopixels and LEDs, but this case is a bit special.
I'm trying to understand what is the best way to do what I need.
This post is mainly theory as I didn't wired anything yet.
(and sorry if this topic is not purely relying on Adafruit products)
So here is the background:
I'm working on a large art installation, and I need to control 54 LED strips, 2m each, so 6480 LEDs. (yeah...)
BUT! I only need to display one color for each strip, so 54 colors at a time.
(we don't really care for now about the number of power supplies I need...)
I need each strip to be considered as a unique long pixel.
So, instead of running a massive chained strip of 6480 neopixels
(much more that an arduino or trinket could handle),
I'm trying to find a way to consider each strip as a single neopixel,
and to control it like I usually control one strip of neopixel.
For now my plan is to use SMD5050 LED strips,
and adding a driver at the beginning of each strip.
I'm looking for something that could act like the WS2811 driver in the neopixel,
to be capable of setting the color of a whole strip.
The best would also be to be able to use the neopixel library for these 54 "long pixels"
Is something like that is actually possible?
I can guess that the WS2811 is not powerful enough for a whole strip, or is it?
The other option I'm looking at is to use 11 TLC5940 multiplexers.
This will allow me to have enough pwm channels to drive the 54 x 3 (rgb) required pwm.
Again, does that sound possible? Is chaining 11 TLC5940 multiplexers feasible?
Sorry, this is a lot of question!
Thanks in advance for any tips on this :)
USING ONE WS2811 DRIVER FOR A WHOLE RGB LED STRIP
Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
- kefon
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 12:38 pm
- adafruit_support_bill
- Posts: 88037
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am
Re: USING ONE WS2811 DRIVER FOR A WHOLE RGB LED STRIP
We have analog strips in 30 or 60 pixels per meter
https://www.adafruit.com/product/346?length=1
https://www.adafruit.com/product/285
These can be driven with one FET per channel as shown here: https://learn.adafruit.com/rgb-led-strips/usage
The FETs can be controlled directly with a PWM pin on your processor. Or with a PWM chip such as the PCA9685:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/815
or the TLC59xxx series:
https://learn.adafruit.com/tlc5947-tlc5 ... t/overview
https://www.adafruit.com/product/346?length=1
https://www.adafruit.com/product/285
These can be driven with one FET per channel as shown here: https://learn.adafruit.com/rgb-led-strips/usage
The FETs can be controlled directly with a PWM pin on your processor. Or with a PWM chip such as the PCA9685:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/815
or the TLC59xxx series:
https://learn.adafruit.com/tlc5947-tlc5 ... t/overview
- kefon
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 12:38 pm
Re: USING ONE WS2811 DRIVER FOR A WHOLE RGB LED STRIP
Thank you Bill for your answer!
This is basically what I had in mind, but I couln't find the right boards.
I will spend some more time looking for other solution, maybe using neopixels
Thanks again! :)
This is basically what I had in mind, but I couln't find the right boards.
I will spend some more time looking for other solution, maybe using neopixels
Thanks again! :)
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.