Thank you Huck! There are several LED strips on the market now that are addressable and can be made to work with this now. The newer ones even have full PWM color range capability. It was someone that created a tool like yours that inspired me to go this direction to start with actually. :-)

I have successfully driven 64 LED (2 meters long) versions as well as 48, 32, and 16 LED versions. I use them all for different types of light painting. There is nothing like the effect of a 2 meter tall PacMan chasing someone through the forest! Ha! ;-) Read through the tutorial, it is very detailed with high resolution photos. Also read through the DLW blog page on my website. The way these light strips basically work is that you send commands for the entire length, whatever that may be and then send commands to "Latch" the strip and all the lights will change at once. The strip sort of acts like a chain, so when you send a command for one LED, it goes to the first LED in the chain, then when you send another, it then replaces the one in the first LED and the one that was in the first now moves to the second LED. So if you have 64 LEDs in the chain, just send 64 commands and then latch it and you have control over the entire length through only a total of 6 wires.. and that includes the positive and negative wires to power the strip. I have been using the Arduino Mega 2560 by the way, it has the most memory so you can load longer running sequences for your strip that way.

There are also links to a custom made program, written by a fellow by the name of Phil Write that you can use to import images, convert them to the arduino code needed for the strip and download it to the Arduino board. It is a snap with that! ;-) Let me know if you have any questions. You can post any questions you may have directly on that DLW Blog and not only will I receive an email, but others that have been working with the DLW will see it as well.

Thanks again for the comments! :-) Cheers! :-)

Hi apender. I apologize for the confusion. This is a tool for use in Light Painting photography specifically which is a long exposure with a camera at night similar to the way night car trails are pbotographed on freeways. So I guess you could say it is POV to a camera only. I suppose it could be modified to do just about about anything like you described but it will not do any of that in its present form. :-)

Thank you very much. I was trying to make this as detailed as possible so that even the novice DIY'er would be able to follow along. :-)

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you . I have been out of the country for a few days. Here is a the Latest Excel Spreadsheet! It will work with 16, 32, 48, and 64 LED versions of the HL1606 Strip. Please read the HELP text since the use of this spreadsheet differs in its use than how it is explained in the written tutorial. It also has error checking to find the most common problems. Please let me know if anyone has an problems with it.

Thanks! It is a blast to work with. And no need to learn much about the Arduino other than I what I put in the documentation.

Great! Would love to hear how it goes and see what photos you make with it as well! And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. :-)

Thank you. I have always wanted to play Pac-Invaders! ;-)

Thank you very much. :-)