- Uses only 5 microcontroller input lines to individually control 16 LED channels.
- Daisy-chaining permits control of thousands of LEDs with no additional input lines.
- 0–80mA output per channel, configurable in software.
- 4096 levels of fading per channel, using PWM.
- Independent power supply per board.
- RF-isolated from controller and other LED Intruders.
- Based on the popular Texas Instruments TLC5941.
- Full Arduino software library available for free download.
- Ambient and mood lighting
- Model railroads
- Dioramas
- Plastic models
- LED displays
- LED art
The LED Intruder is a digital peripheral that provides fine-grained control over 16 channels of LED lighting. Each channel is independently programmable to supply a constant current from 0 to 80mA, which allows for precise brightness or color matching among the LED channels. Furthermore, each channel can be independently dimmed over 4096 steps using pulse-width modulation (PWM). Up to 20 LEDs can be assigned to each channel (using parallel-serial wiring), for a total LED count of 320 (although you must be careful not to exceed the maximum power rating of the board). Multiple LED Intruders can be daisy-chained together, with no theoretical maximum, to control thousands of LEDs using only six digital pins on an Arduino or other microcontroller. Each LED Intruder uses its own independent power supply, and is RF-isolated from the microcontroller and other LED Intruders in chain. At the heart of the LED Intruder is a Texas Instruments TLC5941, which combines a shift register with constant current sinks to provides most of the LED Intruder’s functionality.
