5 years later edit: I was a preeeetty dense 15 year old, lol. Everyone who put up with me here is a saint! I never made this, because, well, I was too dense to do so
Hello! New member here! Had to create a gmail just becuase my hotmail wasn't getting the activation email!!
Anyway, I am still in highschool, planning to study electrical engineering. I wanted to make a gift to all my friends, using a micro that would drive 15 LEDs in a randomly fading in and out order. LEDs in the sides of the box and in the front where my friends' names would be. Each letter from their names would have a corresponding LED. When a button is pressed the front LEDs would stop fading in and out, then one at a time they would light up in a sequence that would make a word. example: mad dad from Adam (just a lil gag).
So in summary, aside from programming I would need a micro that could blink and fade 15 LEDs, And accept a button press as an input.
I dont know anything about the micro controller specifics, but i think i would need 15 PWM channels. Ive only found one micro (an atmega) with such capability, but that costs 10$ a piece (please nothing more than 1.5$ a piece as i am building 10-15 of these...
I was thinking about using shift registers with a 8 pin micro, here is a part i found to meet my specifications: TLC5943, any advice?
also i did
try arduino with the poor dust collecting arduino uno i have (never had the time, or the need to), I do program lightly in VB and C++...
in case my post is unclear i need recommendation on what to use, either a shift register and a micro or a micro alone, and which is most suitable?