[simpits-tech] Solid-state LED matrix help

[dabigboy at cox.net]

---- Roberto Waltman <fsim at rwaltman.com> wrote: 

> Yes, I should have mentioned this. Some of these displays do not have a
> character generator, which should be implemented in software.
> [ For some applications this may be an advantage, because it allows
> limited graphic capabilities. ]
<snip>
>
> But, I am not concerned about the SW development tasks you mentioned.
> (That's what I do every day for a living.)
> For somebody without a software background and/or who wants to get it
> running quickly, this may be a better choice.

Well wait a second here....I don't mind software work, I've written an entire EFIS display in Python and OpenGL. My concern is having to design and build my own intermediary microcontroller and writing assembly code or something like that for it. If all I have to do with my existing LED chips are to connect them directly to something like an Arduino and then write the Arduino's code to drive each individual LED ("dot"), that would probably be fine. I could, for instance, write a software layer for the Arduino that accepts ASCII characters and then turns on the appropriate LEDs on the chip.

Customer graphics would be nice anyway because I'm going to need a few special items, like the degrees symbol and the direct-to (DTO) arrow.

Matt