I’m thinking of doing a layout that would be viewable from all sides, sort of like a multi-layer cake, or the top of the Empire State Building. This is a slow burn project I’m tinkering with but I’m looking for suggestions on what might be the best way to do the wiring layout to help make the code more straight forward. I figure there are several options:
Option A: The LED strips on each horizontal layer (1,2,3,4) as one strip, with each layer on a separate data line.
Option B: The LED strips on each face (A,B,C,D) wired together, each face having it’s own data line.
Option C: One continuous strip, around each horizontal layer and then tied to the next horizontal layer.
Option D: One continuous strip, side A strips wired together, then connected to side B strips, etc.
Option E: ?
I want to have patterns that go AROUND the model, as well as UP/DOWN the sides. For this reason I’m guessing option C or D would be best? And then I would need to make some custom stuff defining Side A, B, etc and/or layer 1,2, etc.
Anything else I should consider or that would make code easier to work with?
If you move to using a mapping function then you don’t need to worry about how you physically wire things together. That’s radically simplified my code since it’s often difficult to ‘cleanly’ route the shapes that I’m building. If you look for recent posts by me you can see that I built a sphere that I then mapped onto a 23x9 rectangle which really simplified programming.
In your case I’d probably treat the whole think as a 12 x 8 grid looking at it from top down functionally. Electrically I’d break things into 8 data lines if you’re using a new parallel stuff or just route them all into on snaking from later to later.
I never thought of looking at it from the top as a matrix. Thanks for this idea @Zeke_Koch !
That’s some cool lighting on that temple @Justin_Eastman . Looks great! For my model the verticals need to stay vertical. The light will indeed fall off up the sides but I’m totally fine with that look. I plan to have the LEDs diffused so it won’t be super hot/spotty at the bottom of each side as well. Planning to use a Teensy and either LPD8806 or APA102 strips so speed shouldn’t be an issue with this few of pixels.
Regarding multiple data lines- I’m fine using multiple data lines, but I don’t think I can do “lines” going across the grid (when looking from the top) as LPD8806 strips can’t be split into individual pixels. If I used APA102 strips they could be cut up individually, but that creates a WHOLE LOT more soldering, and wiring would become a pain going up and down the layers across the grid. I do like the grid idea so will try with four data lines, one for each layer.
