LED Display using RGB LED strip

Neopixel or Programmable RGB LED strips are individually addressable LEDs controlled by WS2811, and WS2812 ICs through a single wire. Here, I am sharing my work on how can we make a scrolling text display using a ws2812b LED strip and Arduino UNO. You can make it with any matrix size, as example, I making it with an 8*11 matrix.

Material Required

Display Making

Either you can make it yourself or you can buy neopixel matrix from here.

We are going to make an 8*11 matrix. It means 8 LEDs in one row and a total of 11 rows will be required. So cut pixel lights and each strip has 8 LEDs (cut from the middle of the copper area)

RGB LED strip light has arrows that show IN and OUT. Keep this in mind and paste the pixel facing the opposite (refer image)

Solder the next Din as shown in the following image. Also, connect every GND and every 5v, as shown in the image below.

Your display is now ready. The final output will look like this.

Connections

Arduino Pin no. 5 will connect to the DIN of the strip. The strip GND and +5V will connect Arduino GND and 5V as shown in the schematics below.

Open Arduino IDE, then we need the FastLED library to work with this Adafruit Neopixel. To install this library go to Sketch>Include Library>Manage library Or press Ctrl+Shift+I.

A new window will pop up, then in the search bar type FastLED and press enter. Here, you can install the first library.

After installation of the library, we will run an example code. Go to File>Examples>FastLED>Noise.

Select the Board, COM port, and upload the code. This library has amazing animations you should try them all.

Scrolling Text

These RGB LED strips have no boundaries. I write the code for scrolling the text, where you can display your message in any color. Using these RGB LED Strip I made an artwork (Shadow me).

Download Code for scrolling text

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