Hippogriff
Member
Afternoon all,
If anyone has read my posts before, they'll know I'm just starting out with pretty basic electronics, JAL is my language of choice and the PIC 16F628a has now been superseded by the PIC 12F683 as my PIC of choice. I can effectively solder veroboard and most of my stuff has been playing around with those powerful 3 watt RGB LEDs to create mood lamps using software PWM... I honestly think LEDs are really cool. I also have some RGB LED strip that I'm intending to build a wall washer out of... when I can find the right wall!
My question is all about LEDs... but more of them. Using a PIC 16F628a I had quite a few output pins, with the 12F683 I obviously have less. Considering that these RGB LEDs require three output pins, I am wondering what would be my best strategy if I wanted to drive more than 1 RGB LED for same project - and by "more than 1" I mean the LEDs could be different colours at different times, so I'm talking about addressing them / controlling them discretely / separately.
With a PIC 16F683, and its 8 pins, I guess I could drive 2... with a PIC 16F628a I guess I could control a few more.
But is that the best strategy - filling up my PIC's output pins with direct connections to LED R, G and B - or should I be looking at something else? Obviously I'm learning so it's often a case of "I don't know what I don't know" but I'm thinking of LED driver ICs.
If I wanted to drive a fair number of discrete LEDs from a PIC, would I be best choosing the appropriate PIC (with more outputs than a 16F683 can offer) or should I start to look at getting an extra LED driver IC (apologies, but I'm not even sure what IC I'm thinking of here yet)?
If the latter, then what is a suitable IC for this kind of thing? How do you then go about communicating between the PIC and the LED driver IC? Is there a single connection made between the two and some form (well formed?) of digital communication sent from the PIC to the LED driver? Would I just set a PIC pin to be digital output then blast command codes down it, or what? You can tell I'm struggling to tread water here.
I've been doing some Googling today... found lots of interesting stuff... but know that folk on here often have good thoughts and direction, so any guidance / thoughts / questions appreciated.
If anyone has read my posts before, they'll know I'm just starting out with pretty basic electronics, JAL is my language of choice and the PIC 16F628a has now been superseded by the PIC 12F683 as my PIC of choice. I can effectively solder veroboard and most of my stuff has been playing around with those powerful 3 watt RGB LEDs to create mood lamps using software PWM... I honestly think LEDs are really cool. I also have some RGB LED strip that I'm intending to build a wall washer out of... when I can find the right wall!
My question is all about LEDs... but more of them. Using a PIC 16F628a I had quite a few output pins, with the 12F683 I obviously have less. Considering that these RGB LEDs require three output pins, I am wondering what would be my best strategy if I wanted to drive more than 1 RGB LED for same project - and by "more than 1" I mean the LEDs could be different colours at different times, so I'm talking about addressing them / controlling them discretely / separately.
With a PIC 16F683, and its 8 pins, I guess I could drive 2... with a PIC 16F628a I guess I could control a few more.
But is that the best strategy - filling up my PIC's output pins with direct connections to LED R, G and B - or should I be looking at something else? Obviously I'm learning so it's often a case of "I don't know what I don't know" but I'm thinking of LED driver ICs.
If I wanted to drive a fair number of discrete LEDs from a PIC, would I be best choosing the appropriate PIC (with more outputs than a 16F683 can offer) or should I start to look at getting an extra LED driver IC (apologies, but I'm not even sure what IC I'm thinking of here yet)?
If the latter, then what is a suitable IC for this kind of thing? How do you then go about communicating between the PIC and the LED driver IC? Is there a single connection made between the two and some form (well formed?) of digital communication sent from the PIC to the LED driver? Would I just set a PIC pin to be digital output then blast command codes down it, or what? You can tell I'm struggling to tread water here.
I've been doing some Googling today... found lots of interesting stuff... but know that folk on here often have good thoughts and direction, so any guidance / thoughts / questions appreciated.