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Component RGB LED 20x instances

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:18 am
by ronaldlijs
Hi guys,

Just wondering if you think there wouldn't be any trouble with Flowcode handling 20x instances of RGB LED WS2812 with a PIC32?

I have 1 working PIC16 with 3x RGB instances with 30+ LEDs each without trouble, with 1 timer updating the LED strips 60 times per second.

Question is if one can take this further to 20x instances and any potential issues this could cause.

Thanks for your time!
R

Re: Component RGB LED 20x instances

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 12:32 pm
by Benj
Hello,

As long as each channel is given time to complete before starting the next channel yes this should be fine. I think you could have as many channels as you need as long as you have enough on-board RAM to buffer all the various colours.

One cheat way to save on RAM requirements might be to have a single output and then use hardware to multiplex this single output between a number of channels.

Re: Component RGB LED 20x instances

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 6:10 pm
by ronaldlijs
Thanks Ben again!

Makes sense...

One thing I didn't realise for PIC32 family of MCUs is how powerful they are now and how the cost has come down in the past few years. I've been "dicking around" with dsPIC16 devices with 32~64KB or Flash and 4~8KB of RAM for too long...... only to realise this is not enough these days for our application.

The PIC32MZ devices put dsPIC16 specs to a shame, I've chosen the FC8 supported PIC32MZ1024EFE64, insane 1024KB of Flash and 256KB of RAM!

Again, thanks for the clarification and multiplexing outputs sounds like a good idea too.

Regards,
R