The microcontroller sounds like the way to go to me. I haven't done any
electronics in years though. I am a programmer by profession now so I don't
think I will have a hard time learning to program the microcontroller but I have
now idea where to look to find one that is reasonably cheap and preferably
rather small.

Read m 'start with PICs page' at http://www.voti.nl/swp the name is
slightly misleading, it will also be usefull reading when you start
with another microcontroller.

I actually sell a kit that does 'interesting' LED sequencing, see
http://www.voti.nl/winkel/producten_1.html#K-KITT-1 , but not that I
mutiplex the LEDs (I drive 8 LEDs from 4 microcontroller pins), which
is probably to the way to go for you.

I'm thinking that I will need some external method of increasing
the current abilities for the version that lights 10 LEDs at once, is there a
pre packaged unit that would take signal to turn on a high current load? Kind
of like a solid state version of a relay board with a lot of inputs and outputs.

check ULN2803A (or the -7 version).


Wouter van Ooijen

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