Controlling a linear array of LEDs and switches?

S

Stuart Dawson

Guest
Newbie question: I want to control a linear array of about 100 LEDs with
a PC. I want the PC to light up a particular LED (working from data in
Excel) and then be switched off again, either from the PC or by an
operator hitting a touch-switch or button next to the LED.

The LEDs / switches will be mounted on the edge of a bench to facilitate
ordered assembly of coloured tiles.

I was thinking some sort of "Christmas-light" controller might do the
job - or do I need a programmable logic controller? I'm reasonably
fluent in software - mostly VBA - and a quick study, but right now I'm
just starting in on control-related stuff, and very much a newbie. Any
suggestions, links, resources welcome.

Thanks

--

Stuart Dawson
Dawson Engineering
Belfast, Northern Ireland
 
your going to need a 10x10 matrix output.
since most dense logic chips don't allow for any
great amouts of current, you will also need some
inverter/non inverting buffer driver chips.
so lets see.
you will need at least 2 1 or 10 logic mux chips
or something that is common like a 1 to 4, 1 to 8 or
1 to 16 chip.. the 1 to 16 has 4 addressable lines and
gate input.
etc..
the idea is to use chip as the low side of the signal to
select the row of LED's and the other chip to produce the
high side of the signal which will be 1 of the COLUMN selects.
etc..
if you i think something line 2 74154 type chips
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ganswijk/chipdir/giicm/74154.txt
then there is the problem of making it work from the PC.
you can use the Parallel output, this will give you up to
256 different combinations etc..


Stuart Dawson wrote:

Newbie question: I want to control a linear array of about 100 LEDs with
a PC. I want the PC to light up a particular LED (working from data in
Excel) and then be switched off again, either from the PC or by an
operator hitting a touch-switch or button next to the LED.

The LEDs / switches will be mounted on the edge of a bench to facilitate
ordered assembly of coloured tiles.

I was thinking some sort of "Christmas-light" controller might do the
job - or do I need a programmable logic controller? I'm reasonably
fluent in software - mostly VBA - and a quick study, but right now I'm
just starting in on control-related stuff, and very much a newbie. Any
suggestions, links, resources welcome.

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Subject: Controlling a linear array of LEDs and switches?
From: Stuart Dawson sd@dawson-eng.demon.co.uk
Date: 5/2/2004 1:15 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id: <nREDYiAGrTlAVwnr@dawson-eng.demon.co.uk



Newbie question: I want to control a linear array of about 100 LEDs with
a PC. I want the PC to light up a particular LED (working from data in
Excel) and then be switched off again, either from the PC or by an
operator hitting a touch-switch or button next to the LED.

The LEDs / switches will be mounted on the edge of a bench to facilitate
ordered assembly of coloured tiles.

I was thinking some sort of "Christmas-light" controller might do the
job - or do I need a programmable logic controller? I'm reasonably
fluent in software - mostly VBA - and a quick study, but right now I'm
just starting in on control-related stuff, and very much a newbie. Any
suggestions, links, resources welcome.

Thanks

--

Stuart Dawson
Dawson Engineering
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Click to expand...
Hi, Stuart. Some hard-bought advice for making factory fixturing for
PC-assisted manufacture or test:

For any factory setup, the KISS principle (Keep It Safe & Simple) should be
foremost in your mind. You have to look forward to a day when you're not
there, and someone else (obviously without your experience in the craft) will
have to fix your stuff or modify it. That's true whether it's your factory or
someone else's. In fact, that someone might well be you a couple of years
later (possibly as a consultant). In that event, it won't look very good if
you don't have a good handle on how things work. Any extra money spent in
hardware which will make it more simple and straightforward, and will make it
easier to debug and troubleshoot, will be more than worth it tomorrow. Using
Excel and VBA is going to make the software pretty much inscrutable for a
maintenance person to begin with. If you add another level of complexity by
adding a custom hardware multiplexing interface to your 100 LEDs and switches,
you're going to have something only you can fix or understand, and that's on a
good day. Unless you own the company, and maybe even if you do, you're not
doing the boss any favors here.

If you can live with 96 inputs and 96 outputs, you might want to look at the
Measurement Computing CIO-DI96 for $179.00 USD and the CIO-DO96H for $239.00
USD. These will allow you to have all your wiring coming from and going to
four 50-pin ribbon cables, with your only additional non-perfboard investment
being the switches, LEDs and current-limiting resistors. The PC power supply
can drive the LEDs directly, and you can read the switches directly. Straight
shot on everything. You might want to get the Universal Drivers CD, and also
four of the IDC ribbon cable-to-screw terminal adapters. Heck, they even sell
the cables, if you want. The VB drivers will work with VBA.

If it is your company, or the $500 USD is too steep, take a look at "Parallel
Port Complete" by Jan Axelson of Lakeview Research ( www.lvr.com ). All the
information and advice you'd need are in there, including VB drivers that will
work with the parallel port. You'll probably want to use a chain of 13 HC595s
(for 100 outputs) and two HC595s with one HC589 to multiplex the input switches
(16 X 8). You might want to multiplex the LED outputs by using one '595 to
source current and two to sink (8 X 16). But with Windows, you aren't going to
be able to multiplex fast enough to keep the LED outputs looking good. There
are other options for getting a lot of I/O from the parallel port, including
ICs from Maxim (originally from Intersil). All of this is doable with the
parallel port, but you have to ask yourself if this is really going to help
your company, or if it's just going to create a job security issue.

Either way, make sure to write and document a debugging program, which at
minimum will light up the LEDs in sequences, and also read and display the
switch readings. This will make it so that, if a switch or LED goes bad,
someone has a chance of fixing it today.

Oh, yes -- use the brightest, widest angle LEDs you can afford. The operator
who's assembling things will move her head, right? With fairly good ambient
lighting so she can see what she's doing? Use series resistors from the
switches to provide some protection to the input ICs, and encourage an
ESD-protected work environment. Static kills computers and I/O. (Again,
hard-bought knowledge).

Good luck
Chris
 
On Sun, 2 May 2004 19:15:34 +0100, Stuart Dawson
<sd@dawson-eng.demon.co.uk> wrote:

Newbie question: I want to control a linear array of about 100 LEDs with
a PC. I want the PC to light up a particular LED (working from data in
Excel) and then be switched off again, either from the PC or by an
operator hitting a touch-switch or button next to the LED.

The LEDs / switches will be mounted on the edge of a bench to facilitate
ordered assembly of coloured tiles.

I was thinking some sort of "Christmas-light" controller might do the
job - or do I need a programmable logic controller? I'm reasonably
fluent in software - mostly VBA - and a quick study, but right now I'm
just starting in on control-related stuff, and very much a newbie. Any
suggestions, links, resources welcome.
Click to expand...
---
If you used 2mA LEDs you could use twelve 8-bit serial in-parallel
parallel-out shift registers (HC164) to drive them, like this:



GND>-------------------------------+
|
+------+ |
DATA>----+-|SDA Q0|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
+-|SDB Q1|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | |
CLK>--+----|> Q2|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q3|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q4|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | |
| | Q5|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q6|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q7|-+-[R]--[LED>]--+
| +------+ | |
| | |
| +----------+ |
| | |
| | +------+ |
| +-|SDA Q0|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | | |
| +-|SDB Q1|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
+----|> Q2|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q3|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q4|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q5|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q6|---[R]--[LED>]--+
| | | |
| | Q7|-+-[R]--[LED>]--+
| +------+ | |
| | |
. . .
. . .
. . .
\_______________ _____________/
\/
TO FOLLOWING STAGES


and twelve 8-bit parallel-in serial-out shift registers (HC165) to
read the status of the [normally-open momentary] switches, like this:

+---------+
CLK>-----+-----------------|> |
_ | | _ |
S/L>-----|--+--------------|S/L |
| | | |
GND>-----|--|--+-----------|SDIN |
| | | | |
VCC>--+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D0 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D1 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D2 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D3 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D4 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D5 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D6 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D7 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | SDOUT|--+
| | | | +---------+ |
| | | | |
| | | | +---------------+
| | | | |
| | | | | +---------+
| +--|--|--------|--|> |
| | | | | | _ |
| | +--|--------|--|S/L |
| | | | | | |
| | | | +--|SDIN |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D0 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D1 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D2 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D3 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D4 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D5 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D6 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | |
| | | | | |
+--|--|--|--[R]---+--|D7 |
| | | | ____ | | |
| | | +--O O--+ | SOUT|--+
| | | | +---------+ |
| | | | |
| | | | +---------------+
| | | | |
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
| | | | |
| | | | | +---------+
| +--|--|--------|--|> |
| | | | | _ |
| +--|--------|--|S/L |
| | | | |
| | +--|SDIN |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D0 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D1 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D2 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D3 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D4 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D5 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D6 |
| | ____ | | |
| +--O O--+ | |
| | | |
+--------|--[R]---+--|D7 |
| ____ | | |
+--O O--+ | SOUT|---->DOUT
+---------+


Use the parallel port to write one bit at a time into the SIPO array
like this:
___ _____ _____ _____ ____ _ _____
DIN ___|_____|_____|_____|____ _|_____
__ __ __ __ __
CLK_____|01|__|02|__|03|__|04| __|96|__




and to read the switch array, like this:

_ __ _______________________ ______ ___________________
S/L |_| |_|
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
CLK ______|01|__|02|__|03|__|04|_ _|96|_______|01|__|02|__|03|_
________\_____\_____\_____\______\__________\_____\_____\____
DOUT________|_01__|_02__|_____|______|____96____|_01__|_____|____


Write the pattern to the LED array once, then continually scan the
switch array for zeroes, and if one appears, turn off the
corresponding LED by writing a new word with that bit cleared to the
LED array.

--
John Fields
 
Hi Stuart,


Newbie question: I want to control a linear array of about 100 LEDs
with a PC. I want the PC to light up a particular LED (working from
data in Excel) and then be switched off again, either from the PC or
by an operator hitting a touch-switch or button next to the LED.
[Snip]
I was thinking some sort of "Christmas-light" controller might do the
job - or do I need a programmable logic controller? I'm reasonably
fluent in software - mostly VBA - and a quick study, but right now
I'm just starting in on control-related stuff, and very much a
newbie. Any suggestions, links, resources welcome.
Click to expand...
A fairly cheap way would be to use 13 pcs. of serially connected 8-bit
serial-in-parallel-out shift registers for the LEDs and the same (only
parallel-in-serial-out registers) for the switches - but do heed the
warnings from Chris :)


--
Regards,
Soeren

* If it puzzles you dear... Reverse engineer *
 
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