Hi all,
Recently I have been getting more and more into the 3 watt RGB star LEDs... using my PIC 12F683 to drive them via software PWM. These LEDs are quite bright - you certainly shouldn't look directly at them for long times - but I'm wondering... what's brighter? Two of these 3 watt RGB star LEDs working in tandem would be cool... but what about something like this, the MaxM Blaster?
This is, apparently, a very bright collection of LEDs... and comes very neatly packaged too. However, it says it is the daughterboard for a BlinkM MaxM which appears to be some means of programming sequences (fades and flashes) into the board. That's all quite expensive, and it's not what I want anyway... I've already written the code to do the fading etc..
My question is... do you think that this MaxM Blaster could be simply controlled from my PIC? It appears as though it takes 5v and then has four pins on the other side (three for R, G and B) and the other for, er, well - I can't guess (glad the datasheet says it's unused!).
I was thinking... I could apply 5v and ground to one side, then send something akin to PWM pulses either directly from the output pins of a PIC or, maybe (but this doesn't sound right) from the emitter of a transistor, like I do now for my R, G and B connections to the 3 watt star RGB LED.
I saw the link to a datasheet... but that seemed to be talking about four 8-bit analogue inputs (that could equate to the four pins of the MaxM Blaster - but I think it could be talking about the BlinkM MaxM)... seems to me (correct me to stop me buying one) that I could connect power to the two pins on the right and connect three digital output pins of my PIC directly to three of the four on the left and - hey, presto! - I have an ultra powerful RGB LED that's directly controllable by my PIC.
Or am I getting ahead of myself?
Any thoughts appreciated. Or better ideas about getting more brightness... actually, I have some 12v RGB LED strip that I bought a while ago, that could be very good too... I'd need some right angle connectors to fit them where I want to though.