I still had 80 LEDs left after my attempt at charlieplexing, so I decided to find another use for some of them.
That turned out to be soldering 40 of them together and sticking them to my wall!
They actually light up my room fairly well:
For now, they are being run directly from a 3V mains power supply. However, once a few parts arrive I'm going to make a little PCB for them which will:
- respond to sound (with an electret microphone), flashing them in time to music
- be directly controllable through a pot on the case
- be controllable from a computer via USB
- be programmable to slowly fade themselves in in the morning, to simulate the sun rising and help me wake up
The 3.3V regulator and electret microphones are on order, and I'll get getting the amp and some nice pots soon too! I'll post when I get that working out.