Test pattern! So this is the LED strips, all hooked up to the Arduino with my own code running a test pattern. Tricky part was the little algorithm that turns an x, y coordinate into a linear address. I was just incapable of doing it without writing a test and there’s no “Arduino Unit” so I took five minutes to play around at work while I was waiting for something late this evening.
Out of this process I’ve now learned two things: all of the pixels aren’t individually addressable on these strips :-O. They’re in groups of three, which means I have a third the resolution on the Y axis as I thought I had. Oh well. Secondly, the strips farther away from the power source get “redder”; I think this is because of voltage drop (I wasn’t able to get the heavier gauge of wire I really wanted and I think that has something to do with it.) I’ll need to plumb in power every five or six strips I think.
On the bright side, I won’t need nearly the memory I thought I was going to, so I can do with an Arduino Nano or Mini which is nice.
