LED controllers boost intelligence

EZ-Color now includes drivers for the DMX512 protocol, enabling designers to create an entire intelligent lighting network quickly and easily with no coding required.

Cypress Semiconductor Corp has added support for a new protocol to its award winning EZ-Color design solution for high-brightness (HB) LED intelligent lighting systems.

EZ-Color now includes drivers for the DMX512 protocol, enabling designers to create an entire intelligent lighting network quickly and easily with no coding required.

The EZ-Color family of HB LED controllers combines with PSoC Express, the industry's first visual embedded design tool to deliver a complete design solution for growing applications such as architectural lighting, general signage, entertainment lighting and more.

The solution enables designers to simply select an HB LED part number, choose either temperature or optical feedback, and choose a colour, including white.

"The DMX512 protocol is widely used for the flexibility it offers lighting designers", said Gopal Garg, Managing Director of the EZ-Color business unit for Cypress.

"Support for this protocol simplifies EZ-Color design to designers of intelligent lighting networks in theatres, commercial buildings and other complex systems".

Preconfigured drivers for the popular DMX512 protocol allow designers to control complex lighting networks of controllers and dimmers in stage shows and industrial buildings.

The EZ-Color solution makes it easy to employ the DMX512 protocol by simply setting three variables within PSoC Express.

HB LED design requires a complex set of calculations with custom firmware to deliver consistent colour.

The two biggest problems that HB LED engineers face are having to account for differing LED performance specifications based on manufacturing bins and the LEDs' degradation (such as output flux, wavelength etc) over different temperatures.

With PSoC Express, designers simply select a colour from a gamut presented on-screen.

Pre-loaded manufacturers' bin specifications and choice of either temperature or optical feedback algorithms are automatically applied to the selected design and programmed into the EZ-Color controller.

This can save anywhere from weeks to months of design time for a complex design.

EZ-Color HB LED controllers can support up to 16 LED channels, compared with four or five channels for competing devices.

The additional channels can mean a savings of dozens or even hundreds of controllers in very large designs, saving on design complexity, power consumption and board space.

The EZ-Color HB LED controllers are also powered by Cypress patent pending Prism (precise illumination signal modulation) technology.

The Prism modulation technology significantly reduces low-frequency flicker and radiated electromagnetic interference (EMI) - common problems with HB LED designs.

Designers also have the flexibility to add additional functionality to the EZ-Color controllers, including battery charging, motor control and other features.

The EZ-Color family is supported by the CY3261A-RGB evaluation kit.

The evaluation kit showcases EZ-Color's flexibility and ease of use for high-brightness LED colour mixing applications and employs temperature compensation for consistent colour.

Included with the evaluation kit is an interactive graphical interface enabling quick colour mixing via a CIE diagram or by directly controlling each HB LED.

The kit is available on the Cypress online store for US $149.

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