Main > Main Forum
LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*
<< < (31/92) > >>
mahuti:
It would be possible... it would just take a bit of work.
Martoon:
Randy, once you're through with beta, etc. on this product,  I think there's probably several people who would be interested in an LEDWiz with more than 32 outputs (like maybe an LEDWiz 128).  For example, the people who have asked about using more than one LEDWiz on a computer.  For certain ambitious projects, especially with RGB LED's, 32 outputs only goes so far.  And I suspect a LEDWiz 128 would be a fair amount cheaper than four LEDWiz 32's?
RandyT:

--- Quote from: Martoon on November 28, 2005, 12:02:23 pm ---Randy, once you're through with beta, etc. on this product,  I think there's probably several people who would be interested in an LEDWiz with more than 32 outputs (like maybe an LEDWiz 128).  For example, the people who have asked about using more than one LEDWiz on a computer.  For certain ambitious projects, especially with RGB LED's, 32 outputs only goes so far.

--- End quote ---

Unfortunately, there's a lot of baggage that goes along with higher numbers of inputs in this type of product.  The LED-Wiz can power a low-voltage light bulb (or about 20 hight ouput LEDs) from each of its outputs, so we are talking about 4x the driver circuits,   There would also be 4x the bandwidth required on that one single USB port.  This would probably mean that the less expensive/complicated "Low Speed USB Devices" could no longer be used.

Then there's also the fact that the LED-Wiz doesn't just turn outputs on and off.  It has full Pulse-Width-Modulation support at 48 levels for each individual pin.  This provides better PWM resolution than currently available with "off the shelf" solutions.  It also has built in pulse effects that are all handled on-chip.  There is no possible way to implement all this with twice the number of inputs, let alone 4x, unless you had 4 processor chips that communicated with each other.


--- Quote ---> And I suspect a LEDWiz 128 would be a fair amount cheaper than four LEDWiz 32's?

--- End quote ---

Looking at what I wrote above, this unfortunately would not be the case.  4x the number of connectors, 4x the board space, 4x the drivers, 4x the processors (or new development on a High-Speed USB processor that may or may not be able to do the job) and 4x the labor.  Not gonna save much.  If we were talking about very low output power levels and no PWM, it could be done inexpensively with multiplexers, but then it would suck for RGB LEDs (only 7 possible colors instead of over 100,000) and it wouldn't be an LED-Wiz anymore. :)

RandyT


Martoon:

--- Quote from: RandyT on November 28, 2005, 12:50:10 pm ---Looking at what I wrote above, this unfortunately would not be the case.  4x the number of connectors, 4x the board space, 4x the drivers, 4x the processors (or new development on a High-Speed USB processor that may or may not be able to do the job) and 4x the labor.  Not gonna save much.  If we were talking about very low output power levels and no PWM, it could be done inexpensively with multiplexers, but then it would suck for RGB LEDs (only 7 possible colors instead of over 100,000) and it wouldn't be an LED-Wiz anymore. :)

--- End quote ---

Ah, I see.  Well, never mind then.  Definitely wouldn't want to lose the ability to have controllable levels of brightness (especially with RGBs), which, IMO, is the really cool thing about the LEDWiz.
Infinity_Yak:
I see some posts looking for good/cheap LEDs, so I thought I'd pipe up.

www.lsdiodes.com

Really, that's all you need to know ;)

Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page

Go to full version