16x16 RGB LED Panel Arduino Projects

Hi Everyone,

I am posting this project because I would like everyone to have a simple place to come to play with one of these fantastic 16x16 RGB LED panels. I have grabbed ideas from other projects and modified them for this project.

It gives you a great place to start with some fun panel projects that you can take and modify yourself. I am not a C++ programmer but most of this code is very easy to understand and modify.

I started on this project because my wife wanted to make a Hat Topper for our son's graduation.

I hope you have a lot of fun working on these projects.

I will keep updating the project with new code as I find other ideas.

CODE ATTACHED:

16counter - Palette of Colors following path of the panel

16random - Random Colors on the Panel

16pacman - Yellow Pacman

16red - Red Pacman Ghost

16colormatrix - Swirling Colors (Credit to another project from Youtube)

I bought the LED Panel from Amazon but you can get them from Ebay also:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DC0IOCK/ref=p...

I like using Arduino Nano's for their small size, I rarely need all the pins of the big boards: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JBYDGM/ref=...

The Cables for hooking up your Arduino board are USB Mini and need to be able to transfer data: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAT82AC/ref=...

WIRING

The Panel has 3 wires, Red, Green, White.

Red(Positive) from the Panel to 5v on the Arduino Board

Green(Ground) from the Panel to GND on the Ardunino Board

White(Data) from the Panel to Pin 3 on the Arduino Nano

Don't get confused by the color of my wires in the pics, I just used different color wires to connect the Nano to the Panel.

Finally connect the Nano with the USB Mini cable to your PC.

ARDUINO SOFTWARE

Download and install the Arduino Software on your PC.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

FastLED LIBRARY

You will also need to download the FastLED library from Github. Most of the code for this project requires that library. Click on Sketch, Include Library, Add Library, Choose the FastLED-master.zip file.

https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED

FOLDER STRUCTURE

Create a folder for your Arduino code and put each of Project's code into a separate sub folder where the folder name is the same as the code.

Make sure your Arduino Nano board is plugged into your computer.

Click on one of the example .ino files in the proper folder structure and it should open in the Arduino program.

Once in the Arduino program, click on Tools, Board and choose the Arduino Nano board.

Next click on Tools, Port, there should be at least one Port listed, choose a port.

Click on the Upload button (Right Hand Arrow) to compile and upload your sketch to the board. The color pattern should display on your 16x16 Panel

If you get a Port issue, try a different port if you have more than one listed.

If you have any errors, go to File, Preferences and click on "Show Verbose Output During".

Check out YouTube for videos of this Project

If you find any issues with the project steps, please let me know.

Have fun, experiment with the code, look for other examples and try them out.

Also attached is an example excel template to layout your own design animations.

Have fun!