Silent Radio LED Sign Part 3

Its up and running! I am cleaning up the code some before posting it here. This is what it looks like with the Arduino all connected up.  All it takes is the 7 driver transistors to interface it to the sign.

The biggest problem now is that the display is too dim. The problem relates to the fact that I am using 5 volts at 2.5 amps to power everything. The Positive Row drivers should have about 7 or 8 volts on them. The code was borrowed from http://g33k.blogspot.com/2010/02/arduino-56x8-scrolling-led-matrix.html and heavily modified to work with the silent radio sign. I am awaiting his permission to post it here.

I used the serial out test program that is available on the Arduino web site to make a simple test program to check everything out.  With that serial output test program you should see lines top to bottom representing the binary values of 1 to 255, they repeat across the sign each 8 LED's has a binary number that is one lower that the one to its left. 

Here is the video of it working on YouTube:


Here is the schematic, I am currently running the TIP120 Transistors on 5 volts because if you use 8 volts they get too hot, but the display gets brighter.  Another solution might be to use an IC or FET's instead. 

Here is the test code to make it all work:

//************************************************************//
//  Name    : Silent Radio Driver                                                      //
//  Author  : Bob Davis                                                                   //
//  Date    : 25 April, 2011                                                              //
//  Version : 1.0                                                                               //
//  Based on the work of Hari Wiguna - http://g33k.blogspot.com/    //
//*************************************************************
// Pins for the row drivers
int row1Pin = 1;
int row2Pin = 2;
int row3Pin = 3;
int row4Pin = 4;
int row5Pin = 5;
int row6Pin = 6;
int row7Pin = 7;

// Pins for column shift registers
int clockPin = 8;
int dataPin = 9;

// Set the pins to output to the circuit
void setup() {
  pinMode(clockPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(dataPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row1Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row2Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row3Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row4Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row5Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row6Pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(row7Pin, OUTPUT);
}

//=== B I T M A P ===
//Bits in this array represents one LED of the matrix
// 8 is # of rows, 7 is # of LED matrix we have
byte bitmap[8][12]; // Change the 7 to however many matrices you want to use.
int numZones = sizeof(bitmap) / 8;
// I will refer to each group of 8 columns (represented by one matrix) as a Zone.
int maxZoneIndex = numZones-1;
int numCols = numZones * 8;

//=== F O N T ===
// Font courtesy of aspro648
// http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1203747843/22
// First char is @, next is A, B, etc.  Only lower case, no symbols. 
// The @ will display as space character.
byte alphabets[][5] = {
  {0,0,0,0,0},
  {31, 36, 68, 36, 31},
  {127, 73, 73, 73, 54},
  {62, 65, 65, 65, 34},
  {127, 65, 65, 34, 28},
  {127, 73, 73, 65, 65},
  {127, 72, 72, 72, 64},
  {62, 65, 65, 69, 38},
  {127, 8, 8, 8, 127},
  {0, 65, 127, 65, 0},
  {2, 1, 1, 1, 126},
  {127, 8, 20, 34, 65},
  {127, 1, 1, 1, 1},
  {127, 32, 16, 32, 127},
  {127, 32, 16, 8, 127},
  {62, 65, 65, 65, 62},
  {127, 72, 72, 72, 48},
  {62, 65, 69, 66, 61},
  {127, 72, 76, 74, 49},
  {50, 73, 73, 73, 38},
  {64, 64, 127, 64, 64},
  {126, 1, 1, 1, 126},
  {124, 2, 1, 2, 124},
  {126, 1, 6, 1, 126},
  {99, 20, 8, 20, 99},
  {96, 16, 15, 16, 96},
  {67, 69, 73, 81, 97},
};

//=== F U N C T I O N S ===
// This routine takes whatever we've setup in the bitmap array and display it on the matrix
void RefreshDisplay()
{
  for (int row = 0; row < 8; row++) {
    //-- turn off the display --
    digitalWrite(row1Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row2Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row3Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row4Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row5Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row6Pin, LOW); 
    digitalWrite(row7Pin, LOW);
    //-- Shift out to each matrix (zone is 8 columns represented by one matrix)
    for (int zone = maxZoneIndex; zone >= 0; zone--) {
      shiftOut(dataPin, clockPin, MSBFIRST, bitmap[row][zone]);
    }

    //-- turn the current row on --
    if (row == 1) digitalWrite (row1Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 2) digitalWrite (row2Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 3) digitalWrite (row3Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 4) digitalWrite (row4Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 5) digitalWrite (row5Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 6) digitalWrite (row6Pin, HIGH); 
    if (row == 7) digitalWrite (row7Pin, HIGH); 

    //-- Wait a little bit to let humans see what we've pushed out onto the matrix --
    delayMicroseconds(500);
  }
}

// Converts row and colum to actual bitmap bit and turn it off/on
void Plot(int col, int row, bool isOn)
{
  int zone = col / 8;
  int colBitIndex = col % 8;
  byte colBit = 1 << colBitIndex;
  if (isOn)
    bitmap[row][zone] =  bitmap[row][zone] | colBit;
  else
    bitmap[row][zone] =  bitmap[row][zone] & (~colBit);
}

// Plot each character of the message one column at a time, updated the display, shift bitmap left.
void AlphabetSoup()
{
  char msg[] = "ARDUINO LED SIGN";
//OLD-for (int charIndex=0; charIndex < (sizeof(msg)-1); charIndex++)
  for (int charIndex=(sizeof(msg)-1); charIndex >= 0 ; charIndex--)
  {
    int alphabetIndex = msg[charIndex] - '@';
    if (alphabetIndex < 0) alphabetIndex=0;
    //-- Draw one character of the message --
    // Each character is only 5 columns wide
//OLD-for (int col = 0; col < 7; col++)
    for (int col = 5; col >= 0; col--)
    {
      for (int row = 0; row < 8; row++)
      {
        // Set the pixel to the alphabet for columns 0 thru 4
        bool isOn = 0;
        if (col<5) isOn = bitRead( alphabets[alphabetIndex][col], 7-row ) == 1;
        Plot( numCols-1, row, isOn);
      }
      //-- The more times you repeat this loop, the slower we would scroll --
      for (int refreshCount=0; refreshCount < 50; refreshCount++)
        RefreshDisplay();

      //-- Shift the bitmap one column to left --
      for (int row=0; row<8; row++)
      {
//OLD-for (int zone=numZones; zone > 0; zone--)
        for (int zone=0; zone < numZones; zone++)
        {
          // This right shift would show a left scroll on display.
          bitmap[row][zone] = bitmap[row][zone] >> 1;
         
          // Roll over lowest bit from the next zone as highest bit of this zone.
          if (zone < maxZoneIndex) bitWrite(bitmap[row][zone], 7, bitRead(bitmap[row][zone+1],0));
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
//=== L O O P ===
void loop() {
  AlphabetSoup();
}