I spent Tuesday afternoon strolling the expo floor at the Embedded Systems Conference (now one of several concurrent events under the “DESIGN West” banner). It’s a big industry show for component electronics and test equipment…mostly out of my league, to be honest…but nonetheless interesting to drop in and see what’s new and where things may be headed.

In one corner of the Texas Instruments booth, the BeagleBone and a number of add-ons were being showcased. A certain acrylic enclosure caught my eye.

From the Pure Whimsy department: Intel’s build of the “Pipe Dream” ball machine from Animusic consistently drew big crowds. I’m really hoping they’ll bring this to Maker Faire where impressionable kids will have a chance to see it! The attendees at ESC are already engineers.

What’s all this then?

Oh! Only a production Raspberry Pi board in the wild! (Only one at the show, to the best of my knowledge.)

With many robotics projects building around a small PC platform, these Oak USB Sensors from Toradex had a certain littleBits-like appeal…as a way for software people to get a quick prototype working without the whole microcontroller learning curve. Each sensor appears as a USB HID device, so no special drivers are required.

(Stock photo) FTDI’s new FT-X chips are cost-reduced versions of their USB bridge devices…the new chips are about $2 in single-unit quantities. Many Arduino derivatives still rely on FTDI chips in their designs, so this may have good implications for the hobbyist to save a few bucks.

I was originally just trying to get a photo of this sign to show off some nice LED pr0n, but while sorting out exposure times realized this botched pic might be insightful for folks writing alternate drivers for our 16×32 and 32×32 RGB LED matrices. A common question is whether to handle the PWM for each row before advancing to the next, or to cycle through each row on each PWM interval? The photo makes it abundantly clear that the big time pros handle the PWM on each row. I’m not sure of the bit depth (looks like it could be 8 bits x RGB), but this is a 1/160th second exposure, from which one could probably derive the overall refresh rate and throughput requirements. Have at it!

And just two blocks away, interesting things were afoot at the newly-opened downtown San Jose TechShop. It’s been a few years since I dropped by the original Menlo Park shop, and the variety and scale of tools that members have access to now is just mind-blowing!

Also just outside the show…the local alternative paper has a cover story on 3D printing! The article is available online.

Have you ever done something silly on a lark and then found it was a big hit? So it went with a “beta test” Halloween idea on the Adafruit Show & Tell last week of my electronic demon costume. This video is a summary of what was done there… and what I’m now scrambling to finish properly before the big day! Video on YouTube (please subscribe!) and Vimeo.

The code for the LED mask with voice is in the adavoice repository on Github. This references the Wave Shield Voice Changer and Multiple LED Backpack tutorials.

Some updates since this was shot: a Ustream chat participant during Show & Tell suggested using a paintball mask as a base. I’m currently working on the faux ribcage idea… there may be enough space to move most of the electronics there and have just batteries in the pack. We shall see!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each day this month (Monday-Friday) we’re going to have a special “Electronic Halloween” post here on Adafruit. It will be a hack, mod, project or something we’ve found that combines all the best things about electronics and Halloween.

Don’t miss our FIRST EVER Google+ Live Hangout On Air Costume Contest! It will be on Saturday, October 27th! Stay tuned for more info about that– for now be sure to join the Adafruit Google+ page!

View all our Electronic Halloween posts here! From now until 10/31/2012 use the code HALLOWEEN2012 on check out to get 10% off anything in our “EL Wire/Tape/Panel” category.

We’ve just thrown the switch on a new Arduino library for creating LED matrix displays using NeoPixel LED strips, pixels or shields. All the functions in Adafruit_GFX are then available: lines, filled shapes, text, etc. The photo above shows three separate 10×8 matrices made from NeoPixel strip (240 pixels total — 4 meters of strip), tiled together into a single display…the library takes care of all the permutations! It’s also a great companion for our NeoPixel Shield.

We’ll have a tutorial soon. In the meantime, adventurous hacking types can get a head start looking through the example sketches. Download Adafruit_NeoMatrix from Github, then grab the latest Adafruit_NeoPixel and Adafruit_GFX while you’re there. Most mainstream Arduino boards can handle up to about 500 pixels, depending on the other RAM requirements of the sketch. The Arduino Mega 2560 is good for about 2,500 pixels…or if you really want to go nuts, these three libraries all now work on the Arduino Due and PJRC’s Teensy 3!

Mark’s Space has a great tutorial on how to scroll text across a matrix with a Raspberry Pi.

A friend requested if it was possible to scroll text across three 8×8 LED matrices, specifically this type from Adafruit, which are very bright.

So, I got to work.

These matrices uses a HT16K33 controller chip and communicate with the Pi via the i2c bus.

Adafruit have very good and detailed tutorials on how to solder it up and get i2c working between your Pi and your matrices.

Since we are having multiple matrices using the same i2c bus, we need to make sure that each uses a unique address. By default they will have 0×70 (hexadecimal notation). This value can be changed by brindgin the gap on some copper pads on the back of the matrix.

Read more.

Featured Adafruit Product!

Adafruit Mini 8×8 LED Matrix w/I2C Backpack – Blue – What’s better than a single LED? Lots of LEDs! A fun way to make a small display is to use an 8×8 matrix or a 4-digit 7-segment display. Matrices like these are ‘multiplexed’ – so to control 64 LEDs you need 16 pins. That’s a lot of pins, and there are driver chips like the MAX7219 that can control a matrix for you but there’s a lot of wiring to set up and they take up a ton of space. Here at Adafruit we feel your pain! After all, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That’s where these adorable LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in two flavors – a mini 8×8 and a 4-digit 0.56″ 7-segment. They work perfectly with the matrices we stock in the Adafruit shop and make adding a bright little display trivial. Read more.

Andy Modla sent in his great project- a LED fire tie!

Stay mentally warm this winter with a LED simulated fire in a tie. It was built with a 8×8 color LED matrix and an Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz. The software is from http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=150881.0 written by giladaya. I modified it to use the Adafruit display.

Read more.

Featured Adafruit Product!

Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8×8 – 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix – Put on your sunglasses before wiring up this LED matrix – 64 eye-blistering RGB LEDs adorn the NeoMatrix for a blast of configurable color. Arranged in an 8×8 matrix, each pixel is individually addressable. Only one microcontroller pin is required to control all the LEDs, and you get 24 bit color for each LED. Read more.

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

NEW PRODUCTS – 10 Segment Light Bar LED Displays in Amber / Pure Green / Blue / White

Make a small linear display with a glowing amber, pure green, blue, or white color using this elegant LED bargraph. Only 1″ long, it is quite visible but not so large it wont plug into a breadboard! 10 LEDs are contained in the plastic body. This display is bright, beautiful and funky with nice diffused rectangular lenses for a striking look. There are 20 pins,10 on each side, with 0.1″ spacing so you can easily plug it into a breadboard with plenty of space for wiring left over.

There is a playground article about bargraph displays but that one is for non-multiplexed displays. You should also check out the tutorials introducing matrices for ideas on how to drive a multiplexed bargraph.

• Amber
• Pure Green
• Blue
• White

All in stock and shipping now!

Make a scrolling sign, or a small video display with these 8×8 square gridded LED matrices. Only 1.2″ on a side, these are quite visible but not so large that they wont plug into a breadboard! 64 LEDs are contained inside the plastic body, in an 8×8 matrix. There are 16 pins on the side, 8 on each, with 0.1″ spacing so you can easily plug it into a breadboard with one row on each side for wiring it up.

Since the display is in a grid, you’ll need to 1:8 multiplex control it. We suggest either using a 74HC595 and TPIC6B595 (using the 74HC’ to control the 8 anodes at once and then using the TPIC’ to drive one cathode at a time) or just using a single MAX7219 which will do the multiplexing work for you.

The Arduino playground has a nice set of tutorials introducing the MAX7219 and 8×8 LED matrices.



We also have them with backpacks (as seen above)! Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That’s where these lovely LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in three flavors – a mini 0.7″ 8×8, a small 1.2″ 8×8 and a 4-digit 0.56″ 7-segment. They work perfectly with the matrices we stock in the Adafruit shop and make adding a bright little display trivial.

All in stock and shipping now!

NEW PRODUCT – SmartMatrix Shield for Teensy 3.1

So you have a Teensy 3.1 and a Medium 16×32 RGB LED matrix panel or Medium 32×32 RGB LED matrix panel and you want an easy way to add graphics to your matrix without having to toss aside your Teensy or do too much soldering. Enter the SmartMatrix Shield for Teensy 3.1.

The SmartMatrix shield has 13 I/O pins that larger matrices need to drive the display. It also adds a place to drive an external power supply and conveniently brings out the Teensy’s free signals to a header.

It’s a great board for easily expanding your Teensy’s capabilities. Comes as a kit of components, but all fairly easy to solder, as it uses all through-hole components. You’ll also need to program in your Teensy with the SmartMatrix code available on the project website.

In stock and shipping now!

NEW GUIDE: SmartMatrix Animated GIF Player

Customize the display with your own GIF collection

This guide will show you how to add a microSD card to a Teensy 3.1 to play back animated GIFs on a 32×32 Pixel RGB LED Matrix Panel. The Teensy 3.1 runs an Arduino sketch that decodes the animated GIF and refreshes the display at a high frame rate with good color depth. The SmartMatrix Shield makes it easy to connect everything together.

We will explain the basic soldering and wiring to connect the microSD card reader to the SmartMatrix Shield, how to compile the Arduino sketch that decodes the GIF animations, and go over options for creating your own GIFs.

Read the full guide here!

Here’s another resource for working with animated gifs on all sorts of matrix displays (not just their hardware project) from the Adafruit community. And a special shout out to our NeoPixel Uberguide. Displaying Animated GIFs onto a 16 x 16 WS2812B Matrix:

There’s an easy way to download animated GIFs onto MeU and if you really wanted to, you can use our code for any 16×16 NeoPixel matrix. This tutorial assumes you know how to work with Processing, Arduino and Teensy. All required code and libraries are on our github page.

Hardware required:

• 16×16 WS2812B (NeoPixel) Matrix
• Teensy 3.1
• 3.7V lithium ion battery

To learn more about how to setup a WS2812B or NeoPixel matrix and to learn more about the Arduino libraries written, check out the Uberguide written by Adafruit.

Software required:

• Processing
• Teensyduino
• Arduino

Pixels from an image file (gif, jpeg, tiff, png, bmp, etc) can be broken down into red, green, and blue values which is how the WS2812B led displays a specific colour. Using this principle we came up with a Processing sketch to convert an animated gif file into an Arduino sketch that you can then download on to a 16×16 WS2812B matrix. In order for the sketch to work properly, the gif file needs to be 16px by 16px otherwise the Processing sketch will not work. The best way to find 16×16 pixel animated gifs is to do a google image search and use search tools to find exact sizes and animation…..

Read More.

NEW GUIDE: SmartMatrix Remote Controlled LED Art Display @ Adafruit Learning System:

This guide will show you how to add an IR receiver to a Teensy 3.1 to play patterns on a 32×32 Pixel RGB LED Matrix Panel. The Teensy 3.1 runs an Arduino sketch that draws to the display, listens for IR remote commands, and refreshes the display at a high frame rate with good color depth. The SmartMatrix Shield makes it easy to connect everything together.

This guide can be used in combination with the SmartMatrix Animated GIF Player guide. Adding a microSD card adds support for playing animated GIF files in addition to patterns in the Arduino Sketch.

We will explain the basic soldering and wiring to connect the IR receiver to the SmartMatrix Shield, and how to load the Arduino sketch that controls everything onto the Teensy 3.1….

Read full guide here!

And check out Louis Beaudoin’s Guide SmartMatrix Animated GIF Player as well.

Coming Soon – Flexible 8×32 NeoPixel RGB LED Matrix

For advanced NeoPixel fans, we how have a bendable, flexible 8×32 NeoPixel LED Matrix! Control all 256 ultra-bright LEDs using a single microcontroller pin, set each LED as you wish to scroll messages or draw little images. This matrix has a thick flexible PCB backing that can be gently bent and curved around surfaces

You can use this matrix just like any other NeoPixel-compatible product, and we even have NeoMatrix code that will let you use the matrix as a 8×32 grid for drawing on without having to do all the icky math Just initalize NeoMatrix with

Adafruit_NeoMatrix matrix = Adafruit_NeoMatrix(32, 8, PIN,  NEO_MATRIX_TOP + NEO_MATRIX_LEFT + NEO_MATRIX_COLUMNS + NEO_MATRIX_ZIGZAG, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

Don’t forget, with 256 LEDs, you could use over 15A of current if you turn on all the LEDs on to white (which we really do not recommend because we don’t think the flex PCB can handle that much current). Try to keep the current draw at undrer 5A, you can use our 5V 4A or 5V 10A power supply. For portable use, if you are drawing less than 3A, try out this 5V@3A UBEC.

Please note: Flexible PCBs are not designed for repeated flexing! While we think this product may work in wearables or other situations where the matrix is bent around, we do not offer any guarantees or refunds if you end up cracking the LEDs or traces! This is for advanced users only, who already know how to use NeoPixels and are comfortable with the high current requirements and protecting the matrix from damage. There are no returns, refunds or replacements for damaged product.

Don’t forget to read our NeoPixel Uber guide for more information on how to care and feed your NeoPixels!

Coming Soon! Sign up to get notified when the first shipment comes in!

Now In Stock! – Flexible 8×32 NeoPixel RGB LED Matrix

For advanced NeoPixel fans, we how have a bendable, flexible 8×32 NeoPixel LED Matrix! Control all 256 ultra-bright LEDs using a single microcontroller pin, set each LED as you wish to scroll messages or draw little images. This matrix has a thick flexible PCB backing that can be gently bent and curved around surfaces

You can use this matrix just like any other NeoPixel-compatible product, and we even have NeoMatrix code that will let you use the matrix as a 8×32 grid for drawing on without having to do all the icky math Just initalize NeoMatrix with

Adafruit_NeoMatrix matrix = Adafruit_NeoMatrix(32, 8, PIN,  NEO_MATRIX_TOP + NEO_MATRIX_LEFT + NEO_MATRIX_COLUMNS + NEO_MATRIX_ZIGZAG, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

Don’t forget, with 256 LEDs, you could use over 15A of current if you turn on all the LEDs on to white (which we really do not recommend because we don’t think the flex PCB can handle that much current). Try to keep the current draw at undrer 5A, you can use our 5V 4A or 5V 10A power supply. For portable use, if you are drawing less than 3A, try out this 5V@3A UBEC.

Please note: Flexible PCBs are not designed for repeated flexing! While we think this product may work in wearables or other situations where the matrix is bent around, we do not offer any guarantees or refunds if you end up cracking the LEDs or traces! This is for advanced users only, who already know how to use NeoPixels and are comfortable with the high current requirements and protecting the matrix from damage. There are no returns, refunds or replacements for damaged product.

Don’t forget to read our NeoPixel Uber guide for more information on how to care and feed your NeoPixels!

In stock and shipping now!

Jacob Quatier shared with us his Website/Server Response Time Meter. He had this to say:

This is a project I did using several Adafruit products. It’s basically kind of a fun way to monitor metrics such as response time for a website / server / app / etc. I was tired of using plain old computer screens with boring graphs on them and decided to get something a little more analog together. The result is this meter, and I thought you guys would love to see it. I’m a huge Adafruit fan, keep up the good work and happy holidays!

From the project site:

…The whole idea was to create a giant meter to show website response time almost like a speedometer would. The result is something that’s both fun to watch and provides a meaningful ‘heartbeat’ of current status. After several revisions and different designs along the way, I ended up with what you see here….

Read more.

Featured Adafruit Product!

Quad Alphanumeric Display – Blue 0.54″ Digits w/ I2C Backpack: Display, elegantly, 012345678 or 9! Gaze, hypnotized, at ABCDEFGHIJKLM – well it can display the whole alphabet. You get the point. This is a nice, bright alphanumeric display that shows letters and numbers in a beautiful blue hue. It’s super bright and designed for viewing from distances up to 23 feet (7 meters) away. Digits have seven white segments on a black surface and we give you a set of two alphanumeric displays as well as a driver board so you can make a clock or a four letter word. (read more)

People around the world are making amazing things with Adafruit kits, tools, boards, and components. Are you one of them? Let us know by sending us a message using the “Cool things for the Adafruit blog!” category of our Contact form. (For more details, check out our video: “Submit a Blog Tip to Adafruit!“)

NEW PRODUCT – Adafruit RGB Matrix HAT + RTC for Raspberry Pi – Mini Kit

You can now create a dazzling display with your Raspberry Pi Model A+/B+ with the Adafruit RGB Matrix HAT. This HAT plugs into your Pi and makes it super easy to control RGB matrices such as those we stock in the shop and create a colorful scrolling display or mini LED wall with ease.

This HAT is our finest to date, full of some really great circuitry. Let me break it down for you:

• Simple design – plug in power, plug in IDC cable, runs our Python code!
• Power protection circuitry – you can plug a 5V 4A wall adapter into the HAT and it will automatically protect against negative, over or under-voltages! Yay for no accidental destruction of your setup.
• Onboard level shifters to convert the RasPi’s 3.3V to 5.0V logic for clean and glitch free matrix driving
• DS1307 Real Time Clock can keep track of time for the Pi even when it is rebooted or powered down, to make for really nice time displays

Works with any of our 16×32, 32×32 or 32×64 RGB LED Matrices with HUB75 connections. You can even chain multiple matrices together for a longer display, you can chain as many as you like but the bigger the display the harder it is on the Pi so keep that in mind! We don’t recommend more than 32×128 pixel setups

Please note: this HAT is only for use with HUB75 type RGB Matrices. Not for use with NeoPixel, DotStar, or other ‘addressable’ LEDs.

Each order comes with a HAT PCB with all surface mount parts assembled, a 2×20 female socket connector, a 2 pin terminal block, and a 2×8 IDC socket connector. A CR1220 coin cell is not included to make air shipping easier, please order one separately if you do not have one and would like to use the real time clock.

RGB Matrix is not included, please check out our fine selection!

A 5V power supply is also required, not included, for power the matrix itself, the Pi cannot do it, to calculate the power, multiply the width of all the chained matrix by 0.06 : A 32 pixel wide matrix needs 32*0.06 = 3.85A so pick up a 5V 4A power supply.

Raspberry Pi not included (but we have ‘em in the shop so pick one up, model A+ or B+ only!)

Some light soldering is required to attach the headers to your Pi. A soldering iron and solder are required, but it’s not a complex soldering job and most beginners can do it in about 15 minutes.

Check out our full tutorial with schematics, wiring diagrams, instructions and a Python library so you can get drawing fast!

In stock and shipping now!

In Stock – 64×32 RGB LED Matrix – 4mm pitch

Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this sweet 64 x 32 square RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them on the sides of busses and bus stops, to display animations or short video clips. We thought they looked really cool so we picked up a few boxes of them from a factory.

This version is the 4mm pitch 64×32 RGB LED Matrix. Please note you cannot use an Arduino UNO to drive this size, its way too big! Use an Arduino Mega, Raspberry Pi, BBB or other device that can handle displaying to RGB matricies and has plenty of RAM.

This is a lot like our 3mm pitch 64×32 RGB LED matrix panel, but The LEDs on this panel are farther apart (a 4mm pitch) so you won’t have be really close to appreciate it. It’s made to look good indoors, even with a wide-angle view (160 degrees) and look great in ambient light. If you are looking for a wider pitch for a farther view distance, check out our 6mm pitch 64×32 RGB LED Matrix or our 5mm pitch 64×32 RGB LED Matrix.

This matrix has 2048 bright RGB LEDs arranged in a 64×32 grid on the front. On the back there is a PCB with two IDC connectors (one input, one output: in theory you can chain these together) and 12 16-bit latches that allow you to drive the display with a 1:16 scan rate.

These displays are technically ‘chainable’ – connect one output to the next input – but our Arduino example code does not support this (yet). It requires a high speed processor and more RAM than the Arduino has!

This matrix has 2048 bright RGB LEDs arranged in a 64×32 grid on the front. On the back there are two IDC connectors (one input, one output: in theory you can chain these together) and 12 16-bit latches that allow you to drive the display with a 1:16 scan rate.

These panels require 13 digital pins (6 bit data, 7 bit control) and a good 5V supply, up to 4A per panel. We suggest our 4A regulated 5V adapter and then connecting a 2.1mm jack. Please check out our tutorial for more details!

Comes with:

• A single 64×32 RGB panel
• An IDC cable
• A plug in power cable
• We also include 4 mounting screws and mini-magnets (it appears these are often mounted on a magnetic base).

Keep in mind that these displays are designed to be driven by FPGAs or other high speed processors: they do not have built in PWM control of any kind. Instead, you’re supposed to redraw the screen over and over to ‘manually’ PWM the whole thing. On a 16 MHz Arduino Mega, we managed to squeeze 12-bit color (4096 colors) with 40% CPU usage but this display would really shine if driven by any FPGA, CPLD, Propeller, XMOS or other high speed multi-core controller. The good news is that the display is pre-white balanced with nice uniformity so if you turn on all the LEDs it’s not a particularly tinted white.

Of course, we wouldn’t leave you with a datasheet and a “good luck!” We have a full wiring diagrams and working Arduino library code with examples from drawing pixels, lines, rectangles, circles and text. You’ll get your color blasting within the hour! On an Arduino, you’ll need 16 digital pins, and about 3200 bytes of RAM to buffer the 12-bit color image.

In stock and shipping now!

LedGames — a BeagleBone Black 64×64 LED Game

This little cocktail-style two-player game system is built around a BeagleBone Black and four of our 32×32 RGB LED matrices. Keith Henrickson’s guide on the Adafruit Learning System explains not just the software elements, but the challenges that come with building a physical thing around it.

Read More…

We love this instructable from hobbyman:

This instructable is about a small circuit which displays a smiley on a LED matrix, singing with the music input.

The circuit schematic, pcb and component placement files are included in the instructable.

Full instructable

NEW TUTORIAL: NeoMatrix 8×8 Word Clock

A word clock tells the time using words. This clock uses the Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8×8 to create a colorful word clock! You can power it over USB so it makes for a great desk time-keeper

The clock uses the DS1307 Real Time Clock breakout kit so it’ll keep time even while unplugged! The DS1307 has an accuracy of +/- 2 seconds per day, but this clock tells the time with a precision of five minutes (so it’s good for general time keeping) The microcontroller board we’re using is the Pro Trinket 5V but you can swap it with any Arduino compatible or microcontroller that can use I2C and NeoPixels.

See the full tutorial here!

NEW PRODUCT – Flexible 8×8 NeoPixel RGB LED Matrix

For advanced NeoPixel fans, we how have a bendable, Flexible 8×8 NeoPixel LED Matrix! Control all 64 ultra-bright LEDs using a single microcontroller pin, set each LED as you wish to scroll messages or draw little images. This matrix has a thick flexible PCB backing that can be gently bent and curved around surfaces

You can use this matrix just like any other NeoPixel-compatible product.

With 64 LEDs, you can have up to 4A of current draw if all the LEDs are on bright white. You can use our 5V 4A, 5V 2A or even a 5V 10A power supply. For portable use, if you are drawing less than 3A, try out this 5V@3A UBEC.

We also have a flexible NeoPixel Matrix in 8×32 if you love that 4:1 aspect ratio and in bigger 16×16.

Please note: Flexible PCBs are not designed for repeated flexing! While we think this product may work in wearables or other situations where the matrix is bent around, we do not offer any guarantees or refunds if you end up cracking the LEDs or traces! This is for advanced users only, who already know how to use NeoPixels and are comfortable with the high current requirements and protecting the matrix from damage. There are no returns, refunds or replacements for damaged product.

Don’t forget to read our NeoPixel Uber guide for more information on how to care and feed your NeoPixels!

In stock and shipping now!