WS2812 thoughts for speed

[RGV250]

Hi,
I got the clock working with the 3 LED rings but it didn't look like I imagined it would so I have decided as Christmas is coming up I would make it into an ornament. Who doesn't like flashing LED's.
My first thought is 3 contra rotating rings with trailing LED's which could make good use of pub time for the calculations.
I would like to drive them as fast as possible, there are 148 LED's (241 in a future order coming), from what I understand if I write the last one I have to write all 148 so I wondered if I would be better off separating to rings and writing to the 60, 48 and 48 rings individually.
I don't think this will save any time though as I cannot write to 3 outputs simultaneous.
The other thought is to go with a PIC24 for more speed. Does anyone have any suggestions to make it faster.

Regards,
Bob

[top204]

For access to lots of the WS2812B devices, do not drive them directly. Use an array to hold the state of each WS2812B chip, then when the array is completed, send it to the line of devices, and they will look as though they are operating instantaneously.

Take a look at my WS2812B projects that use the array method here:

MSGEQ7 Sound-To-Light unit Using WS2812B RGB LEDs

And...

Controlling a WS2812B RGB LED Matrix

Regards
Les

[RGV250]

Thanks Les, I will have a study of the code, I thought it was easier to do it individually for the clock but mainly as I was not sure about using the array.

I noticed a small typo in the game of life video. The text at the bottom says posetron.

Bob