Multicolor RGB LED controller shield for Arduino

Arduino shield for controlling multicolor RGB LED strips from a PC.

I created this shield to control two multicolor RGB LED strips my PC via Arduino. See attached video for a demonstration how it can be used to create ambient light effect on your TV.

Because common RGB strips have common 12V+ anode and separate cathodes for each RGB channel I added an external power source connector with 12V voltage regulator. The channels are controlled from 6 PWM pins going through ULN2003 chip.

Additional potentiometer and button can be used in software to set color modes. Reset button and status are also brought up to the shield.

One of the images shows this circuit build on Adafruit's protoboard (thus it has different layout).

You can also watch a video of how this shield can be used to add ambient light to your TV. The lights are controlled by boblight and you can download Arduino sketch used to communicate with a PC. You can find more informaiton on my blog.

By skobalczyk
Created on January 2, 2010, 15:01

Category: Afternoon gimmickry

Difficulty: amateurs

License:  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Tags: led, uln2003, rgb, shield, arduino

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Fritzing Files

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Comments

  1. phgbecker # Feb. 3, 2012, 2:37 a.m.

    Skobalczyk, The SWITCH SW1 on your fritzing sketch looks like that is connected wrong, or something is missing...It has connections just to DigitalPin 12 and Ground, how about the Input (5V)? ...this way will work?

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