Arduino Projects For Dummies

Chapter 6

Making a Scrolling Sign

In This Chapter

Selecting your parts

Building the circuit

Understanding how the scrolling text code works

Understanding how the hardware works

Because the cost of LEDs is really negligible and their range of colors and brightness have increased, LED signs have become gigantic. It’s pretty much impossible to walk out your door and not be accosted by animated signs these days. We’re surrounded by them, even in small towns. The animated LED signs in New York’s Times Square and London’s Piccadilly Circus use millions of LEDs. With an Arduino, and only a few components, you can easily create and send a message of your own.

This chapter gives you a project in which you will build an 8 x 8 LED matrix of 64 LEDs on your Arduino. You create a custom image on the display by using a sprite. You can create custom fonts and custom characters with sprites. You then discover how to swap out different sprites to create animations and change their speed. When you’ve mastered control of sprites, you can then string together a sequence of them to spell out the characters ...