I'm hoping to get some guidance on an outdoor lighting project I'm undertaking. It will involve an array of 30 LEDs (technically, UV emitters) that will be suspended in a tree on the ends of two-to-four foot-long leads, so they can sway in the breeze. I want each emitter to blink off and on in a seemingly random way, with more time being spent off, than on -- a bit like fireflies. Each emitter will be coated with a little glow-in-the-dark powder mixed with a clear medium like silicone, so the powder will be activated by the UV light and will glow after the emitter blinks-off, with the glow gradually decaying. I hope that makes sense.
Since the emitters use +/-3v, I figured I'd have a solar panel feeding a storage battery, off which the circuit would run. I would want the circuit to only operate when lighting falls below a certain threshold; there's no point having it going during the daytime.
I definitely want each emitter to appear to be independent of the others, rather than multiple ones blinking at the same time. I've seen circuits using 555 chips that will control up to 8 LEDs and give a random blinking effect for each LED, but each LED appears to spend approximately equal amounts of time on and off, and I'd like them to be more off than on. I even found one circuit that ramped-up the brightness (rather than just going on with full brightness), which I thought was great; it would look more "organic" than a hard on/off.
The main question I'm having right now is whether to try to put something together using ICs/capacitors/resistors/transistors, or instead using something semi-prefab like Arduino or Raspberry Pi. I have no experience with such things, but I can read a schematic and use a soldering iron and have put together circuit projects before. Am I correct in assuming that it would be difficult to achieve the effect I want using ICs and discrete components? Would I be able to achieve the effect using Arduino or some other microcontroller? Having some ability to tweak flash rates would be helpful, and I don't know if that's doable with just 555 timers, and their ilk.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Since the emitters use +/-3v, I figured I'd have a solar panel feeding a storage battery, off which the circuit would run. I would want the circuit to only operate when lighting falls below a certain threshold; there's no point having it going during the daytime.
I definitely want each emitter to appear to be independent of the others, rather than multiple ones blinking at the same time. I've seen circuits using 555 chips that will control up to 8 LEDs and give a random blinking effect for each LED, but each LED appears to spend approximately equal amounts of time on and off, and I'd like them to be more off than on. I even found one circuit that ramped-up the brightness (rather than just going on with full brightness), which I thought was great; it would look more "organic" than a hard on/off.
The main question I'm having right now is whether to try to put something together using ICs/capacitors/resistors/transistors, or instead using something semi-prefab like Arduino or Raspberry Pi. I have no experience with such things, but I can read a schematic and use a soldering iron and have put together circuit projects before. Am I correct in assuming that it would be difficult to achieve the effect I want using ICs and discrete components? Would I be able to achieve the effect using Arduino or some other microcontroller? Having some ability to tweak flash rates would be helpful, and I don't know if that's doable with just 555 timers, and their ilk.
Any advice would be appreciated.