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This RGB LED controller kit is somewhat different to other offerings on the 'net. Whereas most others use a single button to step through short pre-programmed loops this controller is intelligent enough to understand different colour palletes and generate colours in real time using a huge 8 million bit randomiser. It lets you choose a colour pallete from sharp vivid colours to soft pastels and the speed and way it will move between them. It also has a selection of other effects thrown in just for good measure, and remembers it's current settings when the power is turned off.
The fact that this kit does the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of architectural lighting equipment means it's widely used in theme parks, cruise ships, trucks, architectural installations, techno-art and many other applications. It's also perfect for mood lighting in your workshop, games room, garden and home.
The unit is shown here with a selection of RGB panels connected to it for demonstration purposes. Almost any common anode (common positive) array can be used with suitable resistors. In the picture you can see a strip of Dioder LED lighting from IKEA http://www.ikea.com/, a round MR16 sized panel as featured at http://www.bigclive.com/happy.htm and a large floodlight panel as featured at http://www.bigclive.com/flud.htm.
The finished module will run an any voltage between about 8V to 30V and is capable of switching up to about 5A (5000mA) per colour without need for heatsinks on the MOSFETs.
This kit has been around for many years and the software has been steadily refined. I do a complete kit of parts including the PCB on my website at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/shop.htm
This kit is also a great base module for writing your own code for any application that requires a couple of button inputs and three high current outputs.
The module uses the following colour palletes:-
Full spectrum - over 16 million colours ranging from black through all colors to white.
Bright - a large array of bright colours ranging from saturated primaries to intense pastels.
Vibrant - (my favourite) super saturated colours from deep purples to brilliant turquoises.
Primary - a small selection of hard primary colours.
Here are the programs included in the controller kit. You use the program button to step through them, and the option button to change speed/colour etc.
1. Morph and hold with vibrant colours.
2. Morph and hold with bright colours.
3. Morph and hold with full spectrum colours.
4. Red marker to show where you are in the program list.
5. Sweep continually between vibrant colours.
6. Sweep continually between bright colours.
7. Sweep continually between full spectrum colours.
8. Green marker.
9. Indie dim full spectrum.
10. Indie dim pastels.
11. Blue marker.
12. Rainbow that can be stopped and started with the option button.
13. Rainbow with variable speed.
14. Black marker
Programs below here can be "locked out" if required to avoid flashy effects in an architectural application.
To lock or unlock them, just hold both buttons in for 15 seconds until the output changes from blue to either red (locked out) or green (unlocked). You can do this as many times as you like.
15. Colour burst with vibrant colours.
16. Colour burst with bright colours.
17. Colour burst with full spectrum colours.
18. Cyan marker.
19. Color plasma lightning. (variable speed)
20. White plasma lightning. (variable speed)
21. Colour strobe with variable speed (vibrant colours).
22. Windswept flames. Each channel wavers like a flame with variable speed.
23. Subtle flames. Much softer waver effect.
24. Rainbow trail. (variable speed).
25. Jewel fountain. (variable speed).
26. X-fader. The classic two channel cross fader with variable speed.
27. Peppers Ghost with variable delay.
28. Juddermeister. Just completely psychedelic! Variable speed.
29. Hazard. For controlling two channels of LED hazard warning lights. Variable reps and styles.
30. Random static full colour. A new one is picked at random when you press the option button.
31. Random full spectrum colour. Option button selects a new random one.
32. White marker.
Morph and hold programs sweep to a random colour, then hold it for an adjustable delay selected by the option button in 3 second increments.
Sweep programs continually fade between random colours.
In indie dim modes each channel does its own thing, fading between random intensities.
Colour burst steps between random colours with variable speed.
Peppers ghost is an optical illusion where two images alternate via their reflection on a piece of glass. Look it up on the 'net. This is ideal for Halloween FX. The option button can be used to increase the hold time between fades in multiples of 3 seconds.
Rainbow trail and Jewel fountain whizz through hundreds of colours a second to leave a trail of colours on any moving object. If you get the angle right this looks amazing with fountains, since the water droplets sparkle with different colours. Also looks great on any high speed moving object. Experiment!
The hazard mode could be used to control banks of yellow LEDs for use as highway hazard lights or red and blue for police/fire applications.
The fact that this kit does the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of architectural lighting equipment means it's widely used in theme parks, cruise ships, trucks, architectural installations, techno-art and many other applications. It's also perfect for mood lighting in your workshop, games room, garden and home.
The unit is shown here with a selection of RGB panels connected to it for demonstration purposes. Almost any common anode (common positive) array can be used with suitable resistors. In the picture you can see a strip of Dioder LED lighting from IKEA http://www.ikea.com/, a round MR16 sized panel as featured at http://www.bigclive.com/happy.htm and a large floodlight panel as featured at http://www.bigclive.com/flud.htm.
The finished module will run an any voltage between about 8V to 30V and is capable of switching up to about 5A (5000mA) per colour without need for heatsinks on the MOSFETs.
This kit has been around for many years and the software has been steadily refined. I do a complete kit of parts including the PCB on my website at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/shop.htm
This kit is also a great base module for writing your own code for any application that requires a couple of button inputs and three high current outputs.
The module uses the following colour palletes:-
Full spectrum - over 16 million colours ranging from black through all colors to white.
Bright - a large array of bright colours ranging from saturated primaries to intense pastels.
Vibrant - (my favourite) super saturated colours from deep purples to brilliant turquoises.
Primary - a small selection of hard primary colours.
Here are the programs included in the controller kit. You use the program button to step through them, and the option button to change speed/colour etc.
1. Morph and hold with vibrant colours.
2. Morph and hold with bright colours.
3. Morph and hold with full spectrum colours.
4. Red marker to show where you are in the program list.
5. Sweep continually between vibrant colours.
6. Sweep continually between bright colours.
7. Sweep continually between full spectrum colours.
8. Green marker.
9. Indie dim full spectrum.
10. Indie dim pastels.
11. Blue marker.
12. Rainbow that can be stopped and started with the option button.
13. Rainbow with variable speed.
14. Black marker
Programs below here can be "locked out" if required to avoid flashy effects in an architectural application.
To lock or unlock them, just hold both buttons in for 15 seconds until the output changes from blue to either red (locked out) or green (unlocked). You can do this as many times as you like.
15. Colour burst with vibrant colours.
16. Colour burst with bright colours.
17. Colour burst with full spectrum colours.
18. Cyan marker.
19. Color plasma lightning. (variable speed)
20. White plasma lightning. (variable speed)
21. Colour strobe with variable speed (vibrant colours).
22. Windswept flames. Each channel wavers like a flame with variable speed.
23. Subtle flames. Much softer waver effect.
24. Rainbow trail. (variable speed).
25. Jewel fountain. (variable speed).
26. X-fader. The classic two channel cross fader with variable speed.
27. Peppers Ghost with variable delay.
28. Juddermeister. Just completely psychedelic! Variable speed.
29. Hazard. For controlling two channels of LED hazard warning lights. Variable reps and styles.
30. Random static full colour. A new one is picked at random when you press the option button.
31. Random full spectrum colour. Option button selects a new random one.
32. White marker.
Morph and hold programs sweep to a random colour, then hold it for an adjustable delay selected by the option button in 3 second increments.
Sweep programs continually fade between random colours.
In indie dim modes each channel does its own thing, fading between random intensities.
Colour burst steps between random colours with variable speed.
Peppers ghost is an optical illusion where two images alternate via their reflection on a piece of glass. Look it up on the 'net. This is ideal for Halloween FX. The option button can be used to increase the hold time between fades in multiples of 3 seconds.
Rainbow trail and Jewel fountain whizz through hundreds of colours a second to leave a trail of colours on any moving object. If you get the angle right this looks amazing with fountains, since the water droplets sparkle with different colours. Also looks great on any high speed moving object. Experiment!
The hazard mode could be used to control banks of yellow LEDs for use as highway hazard lights or red and blue for police/fire applications.
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Signing UpStep 1Starting construction.
When I design PCBs I always try to make them single sided with big chunky pads and tracks. This makes them much easier to build, modify and repair. The downside to this is that sometimes links are needed, but with a bit of care you can minimise the number required.
The two links on this board carry the full current of the red and green channels, so they should be fairly thick links. You can use a bit of solid wire or component lead off-cuts. I like to use off-cut leads from diodes because they are nice and thick.
I strongly recommend the use of traditional lead-tin based solder for my projects. The modern lead-free stuff is nowhere near as easy to use or as good as the lead based stuff. Lead has effectively been banned from mass produced consumer products for safety reasons but it's still perfectly acceptable to use it for DIY stuff like this.
The two links on this board carry the full current of the red and green channels, so they should be fairly thick links. You can use a bit of solid wire or component lead off-cuts. I like to use off-cut leads from diodes because they are nice and thick.
I strongly recommend the use of traditional lead-tin based solder for my projects. The modern lead-free stuff is nowhere near as easy to use or as good as the lead based stuff. Lead has effectively been banned from mass produced consumer products for safety reasons but it's still perfectly acceptable to use it for DIY stuff like this.
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I will be using this strip:
www.sparkfun.com/products/10262
There's a datasheet that explains how much it consumes, but it's making me completely confused.
how much of those strips could I possibly use to run on your controller?
You can also buy RGB amplifiers that buffer the controllers outputs to drive sections on separate power supplies.
sorry im quite a noob =P
2) No source - bummer, I like programming pics more than the effects of what they do - Perhaps a nominal charge to sell / license it?
3) schematic: Ditto, this IS after all "Instructibles", not "Details on a commercial-only product". I don't know FETs from much, but DID buy some little 100ma cheapies to play with and find 0-2v gate = open, and between 2V and 2.8V they conduct (going to try auto AAA battery replacement gizmo, allowing you to continue to listen to an MP3 even tho a battery died - the repl was switched in with an FET and an LED says which batt needs recharging, etc.
BUT STILL a very nice instructible 'cept for the source and schematic
There's never really been a schematic for this design. I usually just do a few scribbles and then go straight to copper. It's super simple by design, with all the complicated stuff being done in software.
MOSFETs have a specific gate voltage where they start to turn on, and will not turn on fully until the rated voltage is reached. Below that they tend to act more as resistors.
Although this is a commercial kit, I don't actually approve of putting stuff like this on Instructables. My hand was forced when someone in Canada who seems to make a career of ripping off other peoples designs started selling a rival kit based on a copy of my design with someone else's ripped off software. He put the assembly instructions here on Instructables and I just kinda did the same. (But I asked Instructables management first.)
Check out my website at bigclive.com and you'll see that while I do have a few commercial projects, the bulk of the site is free.
Love the instructable! When you say that others offer an RGB driver that uses a single button to step through the RGB, where did you find that? Or is there a certain name for that type of circuitry? Thanks!
Pete's software allows you to edit a table with specific target colours then fades between them. It requires a programmer like a PICkit2 to program your chip.
I am not worried about the software, I will easily be able to learn the coding, I just have a few questions on the hardware.
It says that you can control "thousands", I would like to have around 600-800 leds in my project.
Question is, how would I go about hooking the LEDs to this controller? Would I need more hardware? Thanks, and great job!
Assuming 5A (5000mA) and series wired strings of three LEDs of each colour in series with suitable resistors, that would allow you to drive 750 LEDs per channel at 20mA or 1500 per channel at 10mA.
If using combined RGB LEDs with four wires it's not possible to connect them in series multiples, so you could only run 250 at 20mA or 500 at 10mA. Series multiples is a much more efficient way of using the LEDs.
The controller does come with built in software for a wide range of effects. Note that writing your own software for this controller would require a good knowledge of assembly code, since it's the only way you can achieve a fast enough PWM rate from the microcontroller used.
Your software is more of a mood lighting system if I understand correctly? So there is no patterns or flashing involved in the code?
If I were to get a heatsink for the MOSFETS, could I run more leds?
I am going to be using 4-wire common anode RGB LEDs. I could make due with 500 LEDS.
I would love to have them all working on the same controller, but if I couldn't go the heat sink route, is there a way I could hook two of these devices together?
You could add a thin fin to each MOSFET since they are close together, but note that the tab of the MOSFET is electrically connected with the outputs, so putting all the tabs on a common heatsink wouldn't work unless they were mounted with isolating hardware. If mounted off board on external heatsinks you would need to keep the connections to the MOSFETs short and keep the gate wire well away from the power carrying wires.
You can't really sync two controllers together, since they automatically reseed their randomisers based on user input and would be virtually impossible to match up.
Or is there any other way to get 50o LEDs to run off of 1?
Whatever you do I recommend splitting your LED circuits into a series of sub-circuits with a fuse on the common of each to allow the use of thinner cable without a meltdown if something shorts out.
If you have a moment I had a few questions about your Full RGB Controller Kit. Im very new and never done anything with RGB LEDs only single color ones.
Could you use your controller to control full RGB LEDs or does it only work with single color LEDs in an RGB array?
I want to make a grid of 9x7 RGB LEDs and think your controller would be great for my purposes.
2 last questions if you don't mind.
Would I still be able to run all 63 LEDs on it?
How/ where exactly would I put all 3 of the 470 ohm resistors for each led?
Thanks for your time again!
The controller can handle up to about 5A (5000mA) per colour, so it will handle all your LEDs fine. You will need a fairly beefy 12V 4A power supply to run that number of LEDs.
(very basic diagram and only showing 1 led) or did you mean all 3 resistors before the LED
First time for everything.
I cant wait to get started!
Once again thanks you have been a great help in answering all of my questions!
Build mine this past weekend very easy!
Using to control five 3 watt RGB lights on top of entertainment center. Illuminates very nice, ceiling and walls around the entertainment center.
The police type light program is a nice touch.
Keep making updates to the program maybe add some music sync?
Thanks Clive
There's never really been a schematic other than a few doodles I did on a notepad before going straight to copper. The use of a PIC microcontroller makes the design very simple though, as you can see from the low component count.
I need software for pic