Jetranger
New Member
Hello and thank you in advance.
I'm in the brainstorming stage of designing a circuit that will control up to 40 individual LED's. Each LED will have a unique cycle time which includes the duration it's "on" and duration it's "off". (So I guess that means the duty cycle needs to be programmable for each) The 40 circuits are individually timed and not timed with each other so there is no synchronization that needs to happen between all the circuits.
I will be using standard (probably 3mm) LED's on each output... But I would like those leds to appear almost like incandescent lights when they turn on and off. So instead of switching them fully "on" or fully "off", I would like to make the change happen over a few milliseconds so it looks like a real old fashioned light bulb being switched on or off.
I would like this circuit to use relatively low power (hopefully) so I can run this from battery power. It needs to have an on/off switch (or maybe a touch plate? to toggle it) I would also like the option of including a photocell pick up ambient light and automatically adjust the brightness of all the LED's so they are not too bright at night.
For those of you who are familiar with nautical charts for mariners, these charts show markers used for navigation around costal shorelines and harbors. What I’m doing in this project is taking one of these charts and populating all the lighted markers with the appropriate color LED (red/green/clear) and creating the proper lighting cycle for that unique buoy. Since some of these charts may have 40 uniquely timed marker lights, I need to have a way to light each individual LED for the proper duration and cycle. Most of these lighting cycles are 1-10 seconds for a complete cycle and the lighted portion of that cycle is typically 2-5 seconds. This is the need to control the duty cycle of the output. I will be hanging this framed chart on the wall at a boat house for boaters to see and get a feel for the area. Since the sun may shine into that room, I would like to have a photocell adjust the brightness for day and night use. There should be plenty of room to hide the circuit behind the chart in the frame since I’m making the frame 3” deep. The charts are about 3ft square so they are good size.
I’m thinking this could be done with a PIC of some sort with many output pins. I would like to keep it simple and cost is really not critical since I will only be making 3-5 of these over the next few years. It would be nice to have a programmable solution since each chart has vastly different marker times on them. It would be slick to write the PIC program once and modify it for each individual chart as need.
Any ideas on what PIC to use would be appreciated. Also, if someone has an interest in designing the hardware or software, I would entertain that offer. Thank you! Dan
I'm in the brainstorming stage of designing a circuit that will control up to 40 individual LED's. Each LED will have a unique cycle time which includes the duration it's "on" and duration it's "off". (So I guess that means the duty cycle needs to be programmable for each) The 40 circuits are individually timed and not timed with each other so there is no synchronization that needs to happen between all the circuits.
I will be using standard (probably 3mm) LED's on each output... But I would like those leds to appear almost like incandescent lights when they turn on and off. So instead of switching them fully "on" or fully "off", I would like to make the change happen over a few milliseconds so it looks like a real old fashioned light bulb being switched on or off.
I would like this circuit to use relatively low power (hopefully) so I can run this from battery power. It needs to have an on/off switch (or maybe a touch plate? to toggle it) I would also like the option of including a photocell pick up ambient light and automatically adjust the brightness of all the LED's so they are not too bright at night.
For those of you who are familiar with nautical charts for mariners, these charts show markers used for navigation around costal shorelines and harbors. What I’m doing in this project is taking one of these charts and populating all the lighted markers with the appropriate color LED (red/green/clear) and creating the proper lighting cycle for that unique buoy. Since some of these charts may have 40 uniquely timed marker lights, I need to have a way to light each individual LED for the proper duration and cycle. Most of these lighting cycles are 1-10 seconds for a complete cycle and the lighted portion of that cycle is typically 2-5 seconds. This is the need to control the duty cycle of the output. I will be hanging this framed chart on the wall at a boat house for boaters to see and get a feel for the area. Since the sun may shine into that room, I would like to have a photocell adjust the brightness for day and night use. There should be plenty of room to hide the circuit behind the chart in the frame since I’m making the frame 3” deep. The charts are about 3ft square so they are good size.
I’m thinking this could be done with a PIC of some sort with many output pins. I would like to keep it simple and cost is really not critical since I will only be making 3-5 of these over the next few years. It would be nice to have a programmable solution since each chart has vastly different marker times on them. It would be slick to write the PIC program once and modify it for each individual chart as need.
Any ideas on what PIC to use would be appreciated. Also, if someone has an interest in designing the hardware or software, I would entertain that offer. Thank you! Dan