Postbag: #30 - Happy Christmas on an ICS RGB LED Matrix

[@jlucasound]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you Julian and all the fans out there!!

[@EdCranium]

I've learned so much from your videos this year I can't thank you enough. Of all the electronics youtube videos, yours are most like real-world situations and follow through the thinking process of how you got the solution. I don't learn as much from just following an "instructable" type video. I have to watch all your videos now in case I miss a nugget of knowledge! Have a Very Merry Christmas

[@JulianIlett]

EdCranium Thanks Ed - much appreciated. Happy new year.

[@lessaunders2229]

Another superb video demo. Your demos and postbags are a joy to watch. Looking forward to more in 2015. Have a happy Christmas and see you in the new year!

[@JulianIlett]

Les Saunders Thanks Les. Happy New Year.

[@richms]

Would love to see a few of them lined up with those connectors.

[@JerryEricsson]

Greetings, I purchased one of these after watching this video. This year, I have it along down to Arizona where we are spending the winter in our motor home. I plan on putting it in the wind shield with seasonal messages scrolling in color. I did a search of your videos and found this one because I needed the code, having nuked my laptop. I forgot the origional Win 7 disk, had my windows 8 disk along, but found that MS, in their wisdom has locked out my code so I am now running Linux. Luckily I had a copy of Mint along, actually it is a real pleasure running it on my little laptop with it's 16 gig of ram, she runs very fast indeed.

[@chrispychickin]

You're the best Julian, your videos are always interesting and follow a thought pattern that makes them really cool to watch. Keep it up mate!

[@fanuchman]

Better ending than the last Indiana Jones. I appreciate you including your logic and observations.

[@JulianIlett]

Ari Fanuch Ha ha, thanks. Happy New Year.

[@tobortine]

I've enjoyed all of your videos this year, many thanks for all the effort you've put into them. Have a great Christmas.

[@JulianIlett]

Thank you - you too.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Have a good one. I would ask if Santa's been good to you, but it appears he makes a delivery from China to you on a regular basis. (As he does for me too.)

[@JulianIlett]

bigclivedotcom I visited three different pound shops yesterday, trying to find interesting Christmas LED stuff. Nothing. The pound shops in Watford are rubbish Now I'm going to watch your latest videos! Happy New Year Clive.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Julian Ilett The best stuff at Poundworld flew off the shelves early on. Poundland's stuff was pretty average this year. Nothing fresh and new unlike their vastly expanded Halloween range. Poundworld seems to have some really neat electronic stuff from time to time.

[@jlucasound]

You are also awesome Big Clive!!

[@JerryEricsson]

After watching this video several times now since before Christmas a year or so ago, I decided that I could go no longer without this little gem. So after a bit of searching, I found one a bit cheaper at 14 bucks US and ordered it, from China. Now, mind you, I have been waiting since March for some of the things from China, I ordered this last week, and it came today! Unbelievable. What I have in mind is to put this in the windshield of our RV when we are parked over the winter, down in Arizona, and display the greetings of the season, be it Christmas, New Year or what ever. So I have been back here today to get the sketch so I can program it the way I wish. I did locate another video that explains that the 1 on the light board mates with the 1 on the blue circuit, so that solves the pin problem. When I hooked mine up to a 5V power supply I got a very bright red stripe down the middle of the screen and then it went out. I turned down my power supply to 3 volts and still no joy. Then I saw that little switch, and flipped it, the next try I got nothing till I turned up the power to 4.5 volts and things began happening, at 5 volts all was well. Thanks a million for these videos, each time I find one, I give some more money to China for more fun at home.

[@JerryEricsson]

Ah yes, and that season is about to be upon us once again. I found my little display, and hooked her up, but somehow it seemed the code had dissipated from her memory banks over the year; or so it seemed. After hooking the wires up once again, and downloading the codes for it once again, I went to program her, and suddenly that snowflake appeared, she righted herself and is working as well as she did last year, or was it the year before, or the one before that? This year finds us back in South Dakota where the sub zero weather, snow and yes even a bit of sunshine come our way. Today is a glorious day with the temps in the upper 40's (F) and our home is decorated for our Thanksgiving, yet all over the television and stores Christmas is the only topic to b found.

[@billhollowman3345]

Happy Christmas Julian, and all postbag fans!

[@Slider2732]

Always an enjoyable walk when watching your videos. Best Christmas wishes to you and family !

[@JulianIlett]

slider2732 Thanks. Season's Greetings.

[@binarybox.binarybox]

Thanks for helping me to get my Funduino led driver board working,Julian. I'm hoping to string a few together and maybe even feed RSS into it. I have made an 8 character red led message unit which scrolls ok using my keyboard so I'm now thinking how an RGB led string would need to be programmed.....probably using the I2C.

[@IBWatchinUrVids]

Lol, the upside down display sounds like my sort of mistake. I have impeccable attention to detail, but totally miss the big, obvious mistakes. I thought something was up when the LEDs were partially lighting up on what should have been unused portions of the display. What's funny to me is, the only real complaint I had about the video was the fact that each letter enters the screen only once the last has completely scrolled off the left side. I was sitting here yelling at the screen about it. I believe "AWW COME ON!" was the statement. I'd spend an unnecessary length of time fighting with the code to handle multiple bytes of data to be fed, and no one would ever notice the difference. :) Thanks for the videos, I'm enjoying them!

[@JerryEricsson]

Here it is nearly Christmas, and here I am back at your video to review it once more. I was looking for my satellite radio receiver that I was sure I packed and had along, when I ran into an old hearing aid box, and in that box was my Colorduino still tethered to her FTD programmer. Hooked her up and she is running the demo code. I know I had it saying Merry Christmas before dang it. Now I have to figure out how to program her once again to wish the folks down here in Arizona A Merry Christmas from the windshield of my Class A Motor Home.

[@vtech8716]

Hello, good day for you. Can you make an example for cascading this COLORDUINO.

[@kb1sph]

I know it's over a year later, but just a comment in case anyone else comes across this. A 5v regulator generally needs more than 5v going into it to successfully put out 5v. I think a couple of regulators I've used require at least 6.5v input to get 5v out.

[@Borneto]

Can i get link of libbrary Colorduino.h

[@havocgeneral]

The ATmega368 doesn't exist, it seems to be a common typo when referring to the ATmega328 as its the bigger version of the ATmega168.

[@JerryEricsson]

OH come on man don't you remember when you could get the 386SX, oh wait that was intel, not ATmega. never mind.....

[@MyWillyboi]

Merry Christmas, Julian! Best Wishes! Julian Ilett

[@JulianIlett]

MyWillyboi Happy New Year.

[@ChrisFredriksson]

Merry Christmas Julian! Thanks for the new video! =)

[@Dancopymus]

Hello Julian, I have two Colorduino cards (blue) and I read somewhere on the internet that some come with the I2C protocol disabled, so do you know of any firmware to enable them? Thanks

[@jvharshascience]

Dear Respected Julian, Hello from Germany. Many thanks for your precious time, and your awesome tutorials I have been using your videos as reference. Really working hard on this particular LED matrix and I am not getting it to work at all, We need more updates on this module, May be another video on this, and We would be really happy. Please show us more on the programming and controlling this may be using an arduino via USB or a matrix keyboard to change the text on the matrix display. We really are waiting for another programming and usage tutorial on this. Many thanks for your precious time, Kind Regards Harsha

[@Landrew0]

In elementary school, they taught us that red, blue and yellow were primary colours. This logic is derived from the fact that you can make any colour by blending them. This is faulty logic, because spectral colours are not necessarily composed of "elemental primary colours." Our eyes can perceive a mix of colours that looks the same to us as a single-wavelength colour, but it is spectroscopically something quite different.

[@JasonMasters]

More accurately, the primary colours of pigments (which are subtractive) are magenta, cyan and yellow, but red and blue are "close enough for most purposes" to magenta and cyan. I always wondered as a child why I got brown instead of black when I mixed red, yellow and blue in equal proportions. Now I understand. If I'd been mixing magenta and cyan with blue (in the correct shades), it would have worked as expected. The primary colours of light are of course, red, green and blue (which are additive).

[@DupczacyBawol]

It was upside down form the beggining. Theres is a white dirt mark in one corner.

[@pfeerick]

I was wondering if you were going to say something like that... 180 degree change :) I bought one of those boards about three months ago and had exactly the same problem with it. The original demo sketch it is programmed with is a nice colour swirl pattern - and it uses the full 'screen'. I'll see if I still have it running the demo code and will link a clip if so. Another great video as always! Merry Christmas!

[@JulianIlett]

Peter Feerick The swirl demo must be available somewhere - I'll keep an eye out for it. Happy New Year Peter

[@BGroothedde]

Great video Julian, as per usual. Merry Christmas!

[@JulianIlett]

Bas Groothedde Thanks Bas. Happy New Year.

[@BGroothedde]

Julian Ilett happy new year!

[@dorfschmidt4833]

Merry Christmas!

[@alejandroriosgonzalez2779]

Good tutorial. I by one of this but I don´t know how to configure arduino software, I try but I I could not download any scketch. Help please and Thanks.

[@ThingsWhichArentWork]

Cheers Julian - A very Happy Christmas to you too :)

[@JulianIlett]

Thanks Jim, Merry Christmas

[@nagenswamy1598]

Hello these posts are from 2014 so not sure if the same topics are still valid, I got a Similar Board it says HW-426 but looks 100% similar, I am trying to upload code from Arduino IDE using USB to UART but not successful, any help is appreciated

[@MarkShannonroad_videos]

Happy Christmas! Is it possible to link the displays together to make a larger one? Thanks!

[@JulianIlett]

Mark Shannon Happy New Year. Yes, via I2C. Not sure if the demo sketch has that functionality though.

[@VaupellGaming]

PDE is for the IDE called "Processing 2" by Ben Fry and Casey Reas excaktly the same as Arduino IDE, and both can open each others files without renaming ;) People use the Processing IDE for normal AVR programming, ;) Edit.. Happy Christmas and Merry New year .. ;)

[@renelefebvre53]

Joyeux noel, Julian. Je regarde toujours vos "postbag" avec plaisir. Et ensuite, j’achète des devices sur Ebay. Happy Xmas, Julian. I watch always your video with pleasure. And after, I go to Ebay and spend my money with devices for my arduino board. Bye René from France and Poland.

[@JulianIlett]

rene lefebvre Thanks Rene. Joyeux Noël

[@Camran340]

tien je ne suis donc pas le seul français =). happy Xmas Julian and thanks a lot for all these vids =)

[@GigotDagnot]

Camran Minecraft Gaming no you are not alone from France. Merry chrismas Julian and All french Guys

[@spidermaf]

Hiya Julian. Nice vid. Whats the green plug you are using at 4:35 to put power into the board? I need one!

[@danielhorne6042]

past this into ebay search bar 181255783741

[@danielhorne6042]

or find 2.1mm to screw terminal adapter

[@kim15742]

Where did you get datasheets from before the internet?

[@CrowsBrother]

Merry Christmas ! ;-) Thank you for all the videos.

[@ilanmagen]

Happy Christmas

[@danielhorne6042]

i was looking for these matrix led modules but most dont have a driver board lol

[@AntonBabiy]

Happy Christmas to all! Anything is always better the right way up ;)

[@JulianIlett]

Anton Babiy Too true. Happy New Year.

[@PODEReTUDO]

Nice video and a happy Christmas to you as well!!

[@NicholasAarons]

Cool Video Julian & Very Nice Work. Keep up the great work. Nick.

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

Merry Christmas I ❤ LEDs!!

[@DanTheMiddleagedMan]

Great Video! Happy Christmas!

[@robertbrooks4011]

Happy New Year

[@Edu_RJR]

you know julian, if you loop that happy xmas fast enough, say 2 seconds for the whole phrase, it would still be very readable. even people driving by would notice a 1 second phrase, like fast reading websites

[@JeffryLandry]

Nice RGB. Merry Christmas Julian

[@JulianIlett]

Gimp Geek Merry Christmas

[@PaulCavanagh69]

@julian ilett knowing that you like arduino and some led displays here is a shield for the matrix www.tindie.com/products/hnhoan/led-32x8-matrix-display-board-for-arduino-arm/

[@jlucasound]

I guess I meant "Happy Christmas and a Very Merry New Year". (Or does Happy Christmas cover it all). :-)

[@ICStation2013]

Awesome!!!

[@Spoif]

Julian Ilett Grrr... It's not a "built in Arduino". It's an embedded Atmel AVR MCU.

[@TheOldmankk]

Marry and Harry Christmas to ya. hahaha....

[@iforce2d]

180 degrees hehehe :)

[@JulianIlett]

***** Yes, I should have worked that out much much earlier!

[@Firecul]

Julian Ilett Any way to see what the original demo code was without buying another?

[@Decco6306]

websites dead ;n;

[@JerryEricsson]

Love your postbag videos, keeps me from buying ALL that stuff, however I do have the bug and have quite a collection now myself. I am planning a weather station when it gets above -0F here right now it's -16F with 45MPH wind, not sure what that would be windchill but it is COLD out there right now. Anyhow I just got this so I could get my weather station online: www.ebay.com/itm/271726513651?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT I think I can make it work with an arduino nano hooked to the weather sensors in a small project box ventilated to get the proper air flow. Not sure how to get wind speed but I am researching some portable units that may work.