Forum Discussion
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
17 years agoElectronics Newbie question concerning LEDs
Hi all, I am an electronics newbie, and I am trying to design an guitar that has a light up fretboard. To do this I need to control about 120 individual, single color LEDs, and I am having trouble...
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
17 years agoThe feasability of a multiplexed drive scheme depends on the intended brightness. If you apply 1:10 multiplexing, as suggested, you typically aren't allowed to increase the current higher than a factor of 5, which results in half the intensity achievable in DC operation (not considering current dependant efficiency, which further reduces the effective intensity by a small amount).
But there are considerable differences in pulse current rating between LED product families, so you should always check the datasheet. It also depends on the current level, if you are able to drive the "rows" by standard logic devices or even a microcontroller IO port. In an application targetting to high brightness, this most líkely won't work.