Rainbowduino Firmware 3

A new firmware for Rainbowduino

This firmware goes beyond the actual firmware v2.0beta (RaibowduinoCMD_Bata) delivered with the hardware. It implements a proper command architecture to control the led matrix display.

Main Features

• double-buffering synced with refresh rate
• 4 auxiliary buffers
• hi-level instruction set
• multiple controlled hardware
• I2C communication protocol
• permanent data storage in Eprom

Download

The latest version is 3.0h released on June 8th, 2010.

Download: Rainbowduino_v3_0h.zip

The package includes the firmware, to be downloaded to the Rainbowduino hardware, and the master controlling software, to be downloaded on an Arduino/Seeeduino (or compatible) hardware.

Check the ReleaseNote page to read the latest improvements.

The software is still at early stages and it is not fully functional

Requirements

In order to enjoy Rainbowduino Firmware capabilities, you must have:

• a Rainbowduino device (see www.seeedstudio.com)
• an RGB led matrix display (see www.robotshop.com)
• an Arduino (see www.arduino.cc) or a similar device (see www.arduino.cc/similar_boards)
• the open-source Arduino IDE (see www.arduino.cc/software)
• a computer (better if Unix-based) with USB port

Contribution and suggestion

You may contribute to this project by giving your help, suggestions and ideas. A discussion is open, at an early stage, on the Arduino forum ("writing new Rainbowduino Firmware").

If you want to receive a note every time a new release is available, send me an email (the address is at the end of this text).

Last revision 09-Jun-2010

Project owner: pacrox22-at-gmail-dot-com

Useful links

General informations

• "Rainbowduino and friends" thread on Seeedstudio forum
• Rainbowduino wiki on Seeedstudio
• Rainbowduino wiki on Trochotron

I2C communication protocol

• Arduino Playground: learning I2C
• I2C Bus Specification by NXP (PDF)
• Arduino I2C Expansion I/O

Other projects

• mtXcontrol: a LED Matrix Editor
• a Rainbowduino controller
• The JoyLite Project
• WebBrainBow: control your Led Matrix over the web!
• Color Tilt

Non-Rainbowduino controlled LED matrix

• "A Tale of Two Pongs"
• Pico-LED Matrix
• Charlie Plexing

Various

• ASCII Table (0-127) and ASCII Table (128-255)
• "So finally I undestood why Arduino has its own software which is different from Processing."