Monthly Archives: June 2009

Thrusday night – Get the LED out

Friends,
    OK… I know that some of you may be getting sick of the story about my light up headband…   but.. l’d really appreciate it if you can take a minute to go check out my Too Cool Rainbow Headband Project entry in the Instructables ‘Get the LED Out contest’ . If you like the project, please vote for it .. and any other projects you like there.. ( It’s OK.. they said it was OK to promote your own entries)  

It’s easy to become an Instructables member so you can vote.. What’s

more.. if you’re anything like me, you’ll absolutely love

Instructables. It’s one of the best DIY sites there is !
I’m sorry to be self-promoting here.. but the prizes in this contest are just too cool… They’re giving away cool blinky lights !.. MUST…. HAVE… MORE… COOL.. BLINKY… LIGHTS… MUST…. HAVE… MORE… COOL.. BLINKY… LIGHTS… MUST…. HAVE… MORE… COOL.. BLINKY… LIGHTS…

OK.. that’s the last thing I’ll say about that contest .. no wait.. it’s the second to last..

Last night something really cool happened. The story about how I ran into Xander H at Makerfaire.. and how that lead to our collaboration made it to the front of HackaDay.com yesterday..  Hackaday is one of my three favorite Geek Do it yourself blogs.. You gotta understand, that’s like getting on the cover of Rolling Stones for me.  That story linked to a more complete story on Synoptic’s.com What I really liked is the way Xander tells the story of the meeting coincidence.. it’s almost poetic 🙂
He even gave a plug for my Rainbow Headband entry in the contest (did I mention the contest ? 🙂 )

I guess that’s all for tonight… more manana.. nite folks.. nite Sam
-me

ps. Here’s the story from Synoptics website.. it reads liek a good mystery..

Adressable RGB LED Strip

RGB LED Strip
Recently I’ve been playing with something I think is somewhat of a

holy grail in LED enthusiast circles: the addressable RGB LED strip.

Non-addressable RGB strip (meaning you can turn the whole strip a

particular color but not any individual LED) is becoming easier to find

in the market but a RGB strip where you can actually control each LED

individually has only been the subject of geek fantasy. Every time I’ve

done something public with common RGB strip, someone has come up to me

and said “oh wow man, can you control those LED’s individually?”. No,

sorry, with those strips you couldn’t — but with this strip you can!

So where do these fabled strips come

from? Well, the one I’ve been playing with fell into my lap a few

months ago — tossed there by my friend Dan who got it from a

shady-looking factory in China while there evaluating LED video wall

products. I’ve asked him for the name of the factory but he’s so far

been drawing a blank.

At the time he assumed (as did I when I first saw it) that the strip

consisted nothing more of RGB LED’s hooked up to standard standard

shift registers, similar to how I built my single-color LED serial strip. This turns out not to be the case and that the chips driving the LED’s are actually packed with a bit of smarts to them.

This became evident when I built a simple test program which treated

the strip like a common shift register but failed in confounding ways

to work. Eventually I had to cut away some of the silicone liner on the

strip to get a closer look at the driver chip. The chip turned out to

be a “HL1606″, nothing I’d ever heard of. A few hours of online

research left me with a datasheet for the HL1606 written only in

Chinese and a single posting by one “John Cohn” from September 2007

looking for anybody who had more information on how to drive the chip.

The posting didn’t get any useful replies.

I tried running the datasheet through Google translate which was

somewhat successful but left me scratching my head over the precise way

to interpret sentences like this:

When a data bit for the Road 10 (D2D1 or D4D3 or D6D5)

and latches valid, the corresponding LED driver output state for

Prescribed changes gradually, when the change to keep the brightest

light of the state, until the new data is entered and effective latch.

It *sounds* like english, right? Yeah, anyways, trying to decipher

the datasheet lasted for only so long before I got pulled away to more

important distractions and the RGB strip sat on my bench untouched for

months.

Then Maker Faire happened and, by some freak chance, while I was chatting to people about the MonkeyLectric

bike wheels, a guy came by wearing a most eye-catching headband. The

headband was constructed out flexible circuit board material on which

RGB LEDs were mounted and were clearly being controlled individually.

Obviously, this was a guy I had to talk to. After a short conversation

I learned that he had found the strip from an electronics booth in

China, the strip was built using HL1606 driver chips, and he too had

had a heck of a time (and only partial success) figuring out how to

drive them. We exchanged contact info and a pledge to get in touch

after the faire to share data and geek out on the strips. It wasn’t

until after I had gotten home did I piece it together that this guy was

none other than the “John Cohn” whose lonely, unanswered call for help

in 2007 was the only evidence I was able to find that anybody else in

the world was playing with these strips.

Maker Faire rocks.
Anyways, shortly after we got to our respective homes, John sent me

a copy of the datasheet in Chinese which I had already found earlier as

well as the PIC code for his headband. The PIC code was the missing key

to the puzzle and by studying it in conjunction with the

machine-translated datasheet I was finally able to get my head wrapped

around how the chip worked.

Below is a short video showing off a basic rainbow-scroll (the “hello world” of addressable RGB strip effects):
So that nobody has to ever go through what John and I went through to get these strips to work, I wrote an Arduino library for the HL1606

and open sourced it. It’s still a bit unpolished and under-documented

but it’s feature-complete in the sense that it can control all of the

features of the HL1606.

Oh, and before anybody asks, I don’t yet have a solid source for

more of the strips but I’ve found them being sold online. So far I’ve

only been able to find them being bundled with a controller and I’d

like to find a source selling them without one (hopefully at a reduced

price). To hunt them down on your own, the keywords to look for are

HL1606 and 5-volt operation. The 5-volt operation is actually the key

distinguisher, as all of the non-addressable RGB strips run on 12V or

higher.

Update 6/18/09: I see John’s posted an Instructable on his Too-cool Rainbow Headband.

In it he documents more what you need to do to drive the chip and even

suggests some possible suppliers for the strips. Check it out (and if

you like it, give him a vote for the ‘Get the LED Out’ contest he’s

entered it into 🙂

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15 Responses to “Addressable RGB LED Strip”

Joe Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

Where oh where can I buy this?
GoJimi Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

This

Looks Sweet! I am doing some research trying to find more info on these

strips…. it appears that the Chinese manufacturer is Top Semiconductor

Lighting Co., Ltd. and the model number is TP-YWSMD5050. Hopefully we

can track these down stateside!

GoJimi Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Also check the LED Light Ribbon (RRFT1000-40RGB) made by http://www.rightleds.com/?action=text|rightleds|1515|en|20589|2

this is the non waterproof one which may be cheaper… now if we can find

a way to purchase these in smaller quantities we would be set!

GoJimi Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

OK… found somebody who sells what appears to be these strips or a variation thereof… http://www.ledlight.com/electronic-flexible-water-proof-led-light.aspx

not sure of length, number of rgb leds per meter, or if these have the

hl1606. They are closed for today so I guess those questions will have

to wait till tomorrow!

BenD Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm

I’m also very interested in doing something with these. Perhaps if there was enough interest, a group buy could be organised?
Richard Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

How

long does it take to refresh the entire string of it – could you get

24-30 updates a second into a lenght that had a couple of hundred LEDs

on it?

dewski Says:

June 17th, 2009 at 9:52 pm

this

is awesome, i’ve always been interested in LED lighting and this fits

the bill for a ton of ideas I have, keep up the awesome work!

erik Says:

June 18th, 2009 at 1:07 am

I

live in Shenzhen (was just at the big electronics market yesterday) and

could visit this factory if there was enough interest in getting a

small order of these strips.

contact me at erikseverin at yahoo com
If there is contact info for John Cohn, I could ask him where,

specifically, he bought the strips. Was it in HuaQianBei Electronics

Market in Shenzhen? They have TONS of parts and especially LED bits to

pick through. I could return there and see if they have more.

Cheers.
jo Says:

June 18th, 2009 at 4:16 am

hi all,

these strips are great!!

I’m playing around with the Arduino and some TLC5940 16ch 12bit PWM

drivers. They work great, but a soldered solution with all the leds and

ICs is great!

I could just find larger quantities on ebay for around 50$/meter.

I hope they’ll get more pricy soon 🙂

Cheers,

jo

Will Says:

June 18th, 2009 at 6:36 am

I am also interested in this, any idea on where to find one?
Nick Says:

June 18th, 2009 at 6:54 am

This is exactly what I need!
So where can we get this :).
MarkP Says:

June 18th, 2009 at 7:16 am

Woah, long link! Try this instead: http://bit.ly/Fu9F9

Wednesday night – Max is 21 !

Today my Max turned 21 !.. That is just so cool and amazing to me. I can remember the day he was born so vividly.. it was about 30 degrees warmer than it is now.. one of the hottest Junes on record.  That day transformed our lives.. we were parents !.. I remember how wonderful and strange it felt to be holding our own baby.. I actually hadn’t ever looked at one closely before that.. and now I had to help take care of one…

Luckily.. now he takes care of us sometimes… Tonight he decided to cook us dinner in honor of his birthday. Max is an excellent vegetarian cook. Tonight he showed us how to make seitan kabobs from powdered wheat gluten. They were amazing.. you start witht he gluten.. add a bunch of savory glop, knead it like crazy…

cut into strips… then simmer it in broth for a while…

Taking time out for a now legal wine toast to the legal drinkign age…

thenbarbeque them over charcol. They were so amazing !.. and all it is is wheat protien.


Gabe and Max entertained us during dinner 

That ended well .. no ?


Later on we went inside for presents.. I gave Max a ‘Hail Sietan’ hoodie.. very appropriate tonight !

Here’s Max opening a gift from my folks.. it’s max’s great-grandfather’s lighter .. It’s so cool. it has his initials.. Max E? Ettlinger (Mom.. what does the E stand for ?)  Max loves having it I can tell !

Diane made another cool gift.. a home garden for max to take back to Brooklyn this weekend.. tomatoes, basil, cilantro, mint, etc.. Max loved it !

Finally time for cake.. Diane had found these cool multi color flame candles…Right after this shot, my camera ran out of batteries.. I got the cake moemnt on the other camera.. You’ll just have to imagine Max blowing these out..

Max and Gabe both got lotterie tickets in liu of a real college savings plan.. Max won $25 and Gabe won $2.. Now I can retire !!!

Then we all retired to the living room..

It was a great evening.. Max is such a good kid.. well.. I guess he’ not a kid anymore.. He’s such a good man.. I’m so proud of him..

OK.. time for bed.. more tomorrow.. nite all. nite Sam !
-me

Tuesday evening -Summertime

I came home today around 6PM and absolutely nothing was happening at home… no crises, no parties, no big projects, no homework, no yard work… no visitors   The weather was perfect.. not cold, not hot…   Gabe, Diane and Kristen were hanging out at home not doing much

Help !

I think  in the month or so since I’ve come back from the TV adventure…I’ve forgotten how to relax !.. My brain is not working on zero input..   Maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing. When I came back I felt so open and ready for inspiration .. I felt like something was just about to come to me about where to focus my life’s energy. .. Now… I’m not so sure. if I’m tuned in correctly  ???

The day to day crush at work , cell phones, email, etc. are starting to creep back into my brain…   I don’t want to fall back into old patterns.. I want to find a way to add more to the world

Universe… I’m awaiting your suggestions….

nite folks.. nite Sam..
-me

ps.. There’s a great article about baby brother billy in Texas Innovator magazine.. check this out. !  Isn’t he cute ?

Sunday night – power failure

First of all.. Sorry to anyone who couldn’t read yesterday’s post.. For some reason Myspace is marking some of my posts as ‘preferred readers only’ ,. You’re all preferred to me..  so not sure what the distinction is. I went back and cleared it up… I think

I’m definitely feeling much better today. My fever broke last night.. I just felt washed out today… Whatever I had, it was a doozy..   I started getting serious cabin fever after som many days laying low. The dogs decided to take me on a walk   they were pretty happy to get out.. .

The beuty of this almost summer day helped clear my head of the fog that had settled there…   It reminded me of the Wendell Berry powem that so many folks sent us after Sam’s passing.. It’s on our fridge right now..

The

Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

One cool thing about today, all of the cotttoonwood (do we even have cottonwood here ?) trees were launchjing their seeds today. Alll day long it looked as though it were snowing… all you had to do was wave your hands and you could catch tufts of these light downy seeds

It was hard to capture the snow effect on camera .. but it was pretty amazing in real life. !

Late afternoon I paid a quick visit to our freind Dan’s new home and work project. The Long trail Community Market. Dan is opening up a community market and communal kitchen in the old Jonesville Store. He’s got some great ideas.. He also has a GREAT blog that you can read here. Do check it out !

THere are some really creepy things still hanging around that store..

Late afternoon dDiane and I droopped in on a graduation party for several of our friends.. It was a beitiful evening.. .. It was great congratulating the kids and seeing some of our firriends. Graduation is always an interesting time.. it reminds you
how quickly time passes…

We got home to find the power off on our whole road.. Diane quickly lit some candles …It was kind of cozy… except that all of our frozen food from the grocery store was starting to melt.. It eventually came back on.

Right befor ebed, gabe helped me make a better header picture for my Rainbow Headband Instructables contest entry.. This LED contest is for anything with a blinking LED.. go check the contest  out.. there are some really cool things there..  You can even vote for the ones you like !.

OK folks.. gotta run.. for the next 3 nights I have work meetings from 11:45PM till 3AM with some freinds who are in India..  Gnite folks.. Gnite Sam
–me