My project has a 1000 led lights on strings ,because of spacing, and will have 109 channels. This will be mounted on a wall and is 12' long and 6' tall. Each channel will have 7 to 20 lights that need to turn off and on during a 30 minute program, the last channel will be all lights on. Should I use an adreno, strip light controller, or a PLC?
Help and suggestions please.

 

Do the lights have to be controlled individually, or is each “channel” all on or all off?

Single color or RGB?

Bob

 

Information, please.

Only one string per channel?

Only one string on at a time, or various strings coming and going throughout the program?

Min and max voltage and current for the strings?

Variable or constant brightness?

Power source?

ak

 

Do the lights have to be controlled individually, or is each “channel” all on or all off?

Single color or RGB?

Bob

Each Channel would be on or off, and single color, I would like to use 3mm lights but am unable to find strings of programmable 3mm lights.
Thanks

 

If they are all on / all off, they do not need to be programmable. Strips do not use the 3mm LEDs because they use surface mount ones.

I think what you need is 1000 LED worth of strips, a micro, 109 bits of shift registers, 109 MOSFETs.

Bob

 

Questions about timing -
1. Is each strip on for the same length of time?
2. Is there a short off-time between strips, or does the light go from one strip to the next with no visible break?
3. Are any of the strips on more than once in the program (other than at the end)?

ak

 

Questions about timing -
1. Is each strip on for the same length of time?
2. Is there a short off-time between strips, or does the light go from one strip to the next with no visible break?
3. Are any of the strips on more than once in the program (other than at the end)?

ak

The project has 20 vertical columns with 50 lights in each column, each column will be divided in what I am calling channels and each channel will have a different number of lights per channel. When one channel turns off the next channel will turn on and the time each channel is on will be different. All are on at the end of the program. The program is 30 minutes long

 

Sounds like you just need some power mosfets with drivers and an arduino for this. How much do you know about coding arduino?

 

Sounds like you just need some power mosfets with drivers and an arduino for this. How much do you know about coding arduino?

I have no experience with arduinos,

 

It is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It's very intuitive. You can google tutorials or ask us any questions you may have. All you need is a cable, the arduino IDE (go to the arduino website and download it), and the arduino itself to code. There are other microcontrollers out there, but arduino is far simpler, cheap, and good enough for stuff like this.

 

Because only one channel is on at any given time, there are several different ways to drive the array that will take much fewer than 109 driver transistors. One is an x-y array. 10 x 11 is 100 individual outputs. Of course, they can be arranged physically any way you want. 10 pull up drivers and 11 pull down drivers. If the computer (Arduino, PIC, whatever) and the LEDs share the same power supply voltage (like 5.0 V), then things reduce to n-channel and p-channel FETs. It probably is more likely that the LED strips operate on a higher voltage, such as 12 V. In this case the pull-up driver becomes a bit more complex, but not much.

What is the operating voltage of the LED strips?
Do the strips require current limiting?
What is the max current of any strip?

ak

 

Use DMX dimmers.
Then you don't need to be an expert programmer, mess with Arduino's, MOSFETS, and all the rest.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...tml?spm=a2700.7724857.main07.3.2bcb656aMPFzsZ

 

LED strips are commonly available in 12V and 24V versions. You can save on cost of some system components by using the 24V strip.

 

It is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It's very intuitive. You can google tutorials or ask us any questions you may have. All you need is a cable, the arduino IDE (go to the arduino website and download it), and the arduino itself to code. There are other microcontrollers out there, but arduino is far simpler, cheap, and good enough for stuff like this.

I watched a few tutorials on programing the arduino uno, looks very doable to me. How do you add more relays or are arduinos available with 100+ conections?

 

No Arduino processor boards have 100 I/O lines in the base design, but there are many kinds of I/O expanders for the Arduino line. As above, based on the information you've given so far you need 21.

ak

 

You could use 8 of these MCP23017 boards to give 128 I/O lines if you need them but going by what I think you mean in your description, many less are nedded.
Of course, extra FETs or other drivers will be needed too, whatever Arduino way you go.

 

Actually, the easiest way to do it is to use fully programmable RGB strips using the WS2812B chip. The entire thing can then be driven by 1 output from you Arduino with no extra hardware at all. The other advantage of this is that, when you get tired of the original program, you can program entirely different effects with full color. Considering the hardware you have to build, it might even be cost effective.

Edited: Just for the savings in complexity of the wiring, I would go with the RGB strips. It's a shame that you cannot get programmable single color strips, but the chip actually includes the logic and the 3 LEDs, so they would not be any cheaper to have a single color version.

Edited: You can get 5m of strip with 300 LEDs for $15 on Ebay. You would need 4 of these. The more I think about it, the more I think this is the way to go.

Bob

 

Because only one channel is on at any given time

He said they are all on at the end. I think they are lit up sequentially and stay on until the end of the program, though I could be wrong, and sections go on then off and at the end all go on at once.

Bob

 

I think they are on one at a time except for the end. Matrix switching covers the all-on condition also.

When one channel turns off the next channel will turn on and the time each channel is on will be different. All are on at the end of the program.

ak

 

Actually, the easiest way to do it is to use fully programmable RGB strips using the WS2812B chip. The entire thing can then be driven by 1 output from you Arduino with no extra hardware at all. The other advantage of this is that, when you get tired of the original program, you can program entirely different effects with full color. Considering the hardware you have to build, it might even be cost effective.

Edited: Just for the savings in complexity of the wiring, I would go with the RGB strips. It's a shame that you cannot get programmable single color strips, but the chip actually includes the logic and the 3 LEDs, so they would not be any cheaper to have a single color version.

Edited: You can get 5m of strip with 300 LEDs for $15 on Ebay. You would need 4 of these. The more I think about it, the more I think this is the way to go.

Bob

Bob
The layout for the lights are 50 lights in each column at 1.14 inch vertically spacing and the 20 columns are spaced at 6.975 inch horizontally . I will be using 1/4" plywood for the back of this display and drill 5mm holes for mounting the leds from the back side. The led strips will not work in this application and the Christmas string leds all require a 1/2" hole and that is to large.
I found these https://www.pololu.com/product/2535, I have to agree with you the strips would be the cheapest and easiest but my customer wants what he wants.
Would It help to visualize this if I posted the drawing?
On the bright side it could get me out of soldering 101.