LED array

[Teebor]

I want to set up an LED array to "animate" a logo

Now the problem is if I use normal LED's you have gaps as they are round, and if I use square LED's I will get gaps on the curves.

Does anyone have any ideas of a way to fill in these gaps with a material that will also act as a diffuser for the light, so it could possibly be used to smooth over the top of the LED's as well to create a smooth seamless finish.

Any ideas on a material I could use? some sort of liquid plastic or clear drying resin that I can sand and polish to give a smooth seamless fnish that is readily available in the UK?

Probably going to use something like an LED Wiz to control it all.

[Franco B]

I had thought about a similar idea using some LED Wiz's to light a 16x16 array of polycarbonate cuboids to display various sprites. I kind of stopped thinking about it when I realised I would need 24 LED WIZ's to control it.

I was going to use some some wide angle LEDs and mount them a few centimeters away from the other side of the block so I wouldn't get a 'spotting' effect. I was also going to use some kind off diffusing material on the other side of the blocks and/or sand the underside of the blocks with ~320 grit to diffuse the light and mask the LEDs.

EDIT: 24 LED WIZ's to control RGB LEDs obviously. I would have needed 8 to control single colour LEDs.

[Teebor]

My thought was to have something like say for example this



(Not what I am going to use but close enough for now)

And have an array of LED's making up the black areas in that picture, and then color cycling them in some way, or maybe a programmed pattern of lighting, which I am not so sure a LED wiz will handle now :/  no matter there are other ways

Now I would want that to be a completely smooth finish but still lit, no lip like you would get with a sheet of plexi under a cut out section, maybe it could be used on a control panel (not what I am going to do) but something neat could be done with it.

[RandyT]

How about a black vinyl mask over white plexi with the LED's underneath?

Also, what kind of animations are you planning to do with it?  Remember that you can group a number of LED's together on a single output, so grouping them in the primary pattern of the desired animation would go a long way in getting you there. 

RandyT

[Teebor]

How about a black vinyl mask over white plexi with the LED's underneath?

Also, what kind of animations are you planning to do with it?  Remember that you can group a number of LED's together on a single output, so grouping them in the primary pattern of the desired animation would go a long way in getting you there. 

RandyT

Thought about that, problem is the area I want to work with will probably have a slight curve to it, making this very difficult indeed, and I would still have to deal with the join at the edge of the plexi

one pattern I had in mind was a slow rolling color wave from top to bottom which runs for a minute flashes a bright white and then fixes on a single color.

Another was to be a single color that would vary in brightness almost wave like / in a flash and then settle down to its normal colour, but the time between it doing this would need to be long if it were to cycle.

Or I might go for something simple like a couple of bright white flashes followed by a single color that is faded in from off


Another reason for wanting to use a resin or liquid plastic (apart from the surface may have a curve) is that if it does diffuse the light well I could get away with less LED's or use single color LED's on different controllers, instead of multi color LED's

Thats kind of the reason my first thought was an LED Wiz as I knew I could wire up several LED's to each output easily

Ohh just though of another pattern, have a 3 led wave coming in from the bottom and left side and moving up to the right corner with a bright flash of white then settling on the final color

[Teebor]

I was hoping somebody might have a good idea for the kind of finish I was trying to achieve here, but nevermind nobody ever got hurt by asking

RandyT, I also now want to do a lit ring with a bright chaser light traveling around it.  What would be the best way to hook up an LED wiz to achieve that?

Actually a better question would probably be, Can I create these animations and have them run on a windows boot up rather than when a front end kicks in?

[arzoo]

Actually a better question would probably be, Can I create these animations and have them run on a windows boot up rather than when a front end kicks in?

LEDBlinky and the animation editor can do this. Only issue I see is that the animation editor was really designed for a control panel, so I don't know if you'll be able to create a virtual layout for all your LEDs.

[Teebor]

Thanks for the info

I will probably just deal more with the outputs rather than individual LED's layout, since I can chain several LED's off a single LEDWiz output that cures almost 90% of the problems I foresaw myself having anyway