How many amps does the Rainbowduino need if I feed it with 6V? From the manual it looks like it can draw up to 4A, so for the 4 units currently on their way to Sweden I’d need to be able to supply 16A!
Assuming 4 cascaded Rainbowduinos, each with a Seeedstudio 8x8 RGB LED matrix, what kind of a power supply am I going to need?
i’ve got a 12v @ 1000mah hooked up to my 2 in an array and they work just fine. i have not checked to see what kind of power they draw but i also have not had them on for extended periods of time yet.
I have a regulated 1A power supply lying around, so I’ll try that when the Rainbowduinos arrive. Now I wish I’d paid for faster shipping…
I’m running 4xRainbos, connected in serie,
with a Nokia phone power supply recycled directly from the trash bin:
it gives 5v x 890mA, and have no problem at all, been running for days without hiccups.
Remember that you’re actually lighting only 1 LED per matrix in each time_frame,
so the power requirements are much lower than what you’d think.
All the best,
kk
It multiplexes the rows but thanks to the latching shift register all 8 RGB LEDs in the row can be on at once, so if you count each RGB LED as 3 LEDs you can have up to 24 on at once.
With a single display showing constant white on all LEDs, the brightness presets on the default setting, and the 6.5V power supply from Seeedstudio I measured 440mA on a DC meter. Running Rainbow_plasma it is more like 250mA.
ooooops, thanks for the clarification 