String lights

[eiranix]

I want to take a string of led lights and have them turn on one at a time until they're all lit up and then stay that way. Can anyone give advice on the easiest way to do this?

Is there a controller I could just buy off the shelf to do this? or will I have to create something?

 

[(*steve*)]

To do this you need to have each LED wired individually.

Once you've done this, there are a plethora of ways to do it.

Can you explain more, it may point to some potential solutions that are better than others.

 

[eiranix]

Ah, I'm guessing any string lights you can buy are not individually wired?

I want to make a line of lights appear to grow from the origin. I'm talking about 60 lights about 6 inches apart. I can then arange into a swirl shape or similar. I would be looking at 3-5 sets of these doing the same thing from the same origin and all 'grow' at once until they're completely lit up. Will need it to be battery powered as it will be an outdoor setup.

Downside of course is I want to do it the most affordable way possible!

 

[BobK]

You could use a series of shift registers, and clock in a 1 at the beginning. It would ripple through all of them and eventually all lights would be on. So 8 8-bit shift registers + a 555 timer would do it. The biggest problem I see is all those wires.

Bob

 

[(*steve*)]

OK, there is another alternative. There are some LED strips which have individual drivers. They're not cheap, or simple to drive, but they're very effective if you do it right.

Here is a video.

 

[davenn]

........Here is a video.

nice one

Dave

 

[eiranix]

Cool thanks, I will look into those strip lights and see if I can get the look I want.

 

[(*steve*)]

There are two types of these strips. I can't remember the part number offhand, but one has a simple "1-wire" interface, the other uses spi. The latter is far easier to use and faster. Unfortunately it is also marginally more expensive so all the cheap strings use the former.