Antorcha vs. Tornado feature comparison --------------------------------------- Number of LEDs 32 64 Pixels 16 64 LED pitch 8 mm 5 mm 1 arc sec / pixel (1) 28 m 17 m 1 arc sec / text (2) 70 m 90 m LED line length 25 cm 32 cm Total stick length 63 cm 53 cm (TBD) Outer radius ~ 90 cm ~ 80 cm (3) Visible width ~ 100 cm ~ 110 cm (3) Sweeps per second ~ 4, bidirectional ~ 3, unidirectional Sweep speed (avg.) ~ 8 m/s ~ 15 m/s (3) (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity (2) 2 text lines, 1/12 display height (3) for chain length = 30 cm Weight ------ Al stick: 52.5 g / 52.7 cm = ~ 1 g/cm Chain: 44 g / 19 links = ~ 2.3 g/link 305 mm / 21 links = 14.5 mm/link 1.6 g/cm Attachment (screw, washers, nut): 2.3 g End cap: 1.54 g Cable: 1.74 g / 382 mm group of 3: ~ 0.14 g/cm LED PCB: 4.1 g CPU PCB: 4.5 g Not included in the weight calculation: - glue - adhesive tapes - isolation tapes - cable binders (if any) - heat-shrink tubing - cables/wires for inter-board connections Update rate ----------- For square pixels we need one update every 5 mm. With the edge moving at 15 m/s, that's one update every 1/3000 s. If we assume that, including overhead, each 64 bit shift and latch takes about 100 clock cycles, the serial bus needs to run at no less than 300 kHz. sclk-1123.png shows the ~250 ns clock pulse generated by the current test firmware. CH2 (blue) is signal entering the first LED module, CH1 (yellow) is the signal exiting the last module. The absence of degradation in a 250 ns pulse suggests that we can go as fast as the MCU is able to.