I have modified his arduino code for it to fit Arduino Duemilanove, which only has 6 PWM (pulse width modulation) pins.
This is a few pictures of the actual circuit. You can clearly see one full RGB channel. It uses 2N3904 transistors and 2.2kOhm resistors. Since this is a Arduino Duemilanove, the PWM pins are 3, 5, 6 for the first channel and 9, 10, 11 for the second channel.
I quickly made a box out of a miniwheats cereal box. (This will eventually be upgraded.)
I use sectioned IDE cables for connections from the protoboard to the LED strips.
This quick demo shows solid colors being projected behind the screen. Video is also very good with this system although, if you are using Windows 7 like me, you might see some harsh framerates or loops per second (lps) to help this out, you can change you windows theme to classic, as I did. My lps jumped from 3-4 to around 14-17. Games can also support it, but usually you'll need to play in windowed mode, the amblone software will limit the framerates on the game though, which can get annoying, but for CPU friendly games, it is quite pleasant.
This is the back of the circuit board.
Looks awesome!
ReplyDeleteLove it!
ReplyDeleteAlso like the song playing in the demo video... What might it be?
The song is by the Dubstep group based on Deadmau5 called Feed Me and this particular song is Talk to Me, BTW thanks for the first comments guys!
ReplyDeleteNo problem!
ReplyDeletethanks for replying to my question so quickly, as well! I appreciate it muchly.
My little brother recently turned me on to dubstep -- can't seem to get enough. Also a big breakbeat fan....
I'm currently building my first LED matrix project. Perhaps I'll actually blog about it.
Its really easy to make a blog, this is my first, and its really straight forward. I'm also thinking of making a 4x4x4 led cube based on the intructables.com model, or even the 8x8x8, I'll have to put a bit of money aside though, thats either 64 leds or 512!
ReplyDeleteMy name is Paul and I am the admin of a site called HackHut. You obviously have a lot of skill, and I just wanted to let you know about HackHut because it seems like a perfect fit for you. We are a hosting service somewhat like wordpress, blogspot, or Instructables accept run by and geared toward the hacker/DIYer. We offer or are working on features that people like you want and can use. I hope you check us out and feel free to contact me there if you have any requests for features or questions about the site.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Thats great! I'll definitely check it out!
ReplyDeletei like the idea, but i wonder if there is not a less cpu intesive way to get your screens average color, i might look into this after a get a few others things done
ReplyDeleteI wasn't the one that wrote the windows application, and I am just beginning to learn C, so unfortunately, I can't help with that, but if you want the source code, you might be able to get it by contacting Bart van der Drift, on his Amblone.com site, hes a really nice guy, don't hesitate to contact him. He's very friendly :)
ReplyDeletehi there been looking at this in the view to building my own. just tryed to download the arduino source and it downloads a strange html file and not the source pde file. could you please email me a copy of you altered arduino source. thanks
ReplyDeletepete
sure thing! send me an e-mail @ cpigeon@cegep-heritage.qc.ca and I'll send you ASAP. I'm happy to see other people want to do this!
ReplyDeletei have figured it out now. bloody safari on my mac playing up lol got it working from the original site now. thank you anyhow. i will let you know how the build comes on.
ReplyDeletepete
That's great Pete! And btw, I just noticed on the amblone site that Bart has updated his Amblone program, which in some cases made the process much MUCH less CPU intensive, so it gets quite fluid results. I'm not sure though if it'll run on Mac... you might want to check that out, unless youre thinking of writing a program for Mac...
ReplyDeleteyeah the aim over all is to make a program for mac. as i have noticed that the the ambilone program is VERY CPU intensive and as such need to sort that out as its affecting my TV on my HTPC. i have how ever got a little problem. IM trying to get this to work with power 3w leds and not light bars. i have got some irfz44n NPN's but i have read somewhere that they require 10v to trig them all the way. this could be why IM having such a game getting it working.
ReplyDeletewhat i want to do is create a total solution that can be integrated as a plugin into a HTPC poss mediaportal or even mythtv. the leds will replace the lights in the living room and from there you can tell it what to do. ambilight, solid color off whatever!
Wow! thats quite impressive! send pics when youre done, I'd love to see!!! Something you could try is using 2N3904 to switch a 10V current to your IRFZ44N, which would then carry out the larger current, I heard this could work well, its a little more trouble, but it could definitely work!
ReplyDeletei defo will, although this is really winding me up now, lol. got to wait on some 3watters from china as i just blew them all up not a happy day!! lol
ReplyDeleteso yeah dont suppose you know of a tranny that will switch up to say 30v at like 10A using the 5v from the arduino?
you can mod a psu from an old pc... It'll give you 12V, then I guess you could use some sort of a step-up transformer, but I don't know any specific components.
ReplyDeleteyeah this is where i would need some help as im doing a computer science degree and electronics is not my strong area although i can work it out most the time. how would you mod the pc supply? i try this and blew the leds up! i take it that you would limit the current through the aid of resistors?
ReplyDeleteYes thats exactly right. use resistors to limit the current. but for the power supply mod I'm thinking about, check this out : http://tgbuilds.wordpress.com/projects/diy-bench-supply/
ReplyDeleteI know its a lot of work, but you dont have to make it so fancy, and you can just take the needed wires depending on your needed power.
Also, I didn't show it above but what I used to power up my system was a generic power supply block, that every body has 20 of but doesn't know goes with what...
what was the power rating of your power brick? 12v @ blar amps
ReplyDeletethinking i need to make this then mod it, im trying to mod it on the fly and its deffo not working!
Hi !
ReplyDeleteI'm currently implementing this kind of ambilight DIY but I was a the point of building the led bar, I wondering if an horizontaly layout could be more immersive (I'm thinking of films/games where with "classic" view with sky etc in the upper part and ground and everything else in the bottom part). Is it something you have thinked about ? Maybe you have already investigating that kind of question, if you can give me your feedback about it :)
Anyway great work, I hope mine will be as pleasant as your !
Paul
Hi Paul!
ReplyDeleteThe arduino software, provided by Bart on his amblone.com website, contains some very nice code that allows us to select which part of the screen you want your system to mimic. There are options for above and below screen. This means go for it! all you'll have to do is change an option in the the user interface, and well thats it!
Have fun!
Chris
Yes I have seen that, my system is installed (horizontaly layout for the moment) I give me a few days of using (a few days to say "whaooo" eaech time I power on the system :D) and next I will perform some test to see if there differencies between vertical and horizontal layout.
ReplyDeleteThank.
Paul
could you please email me a copy of you altered arduino source. thanks
ReplyDeletehttp://amblone.com/download/duemilanove
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