Pico Unicorn LED frequency

Support
1

If I try to take a photo of the Pico Unicorn (either directly, or using it to illuminate something) I get a load of horizontal lines in the image. I guess this means the LEDs are strobing at a very high frequency, and this is being picked up by the camera (the lines vary as I change the shutter speed).

This is the effect I mean:

image
image1292×969 113 KB

If I’m correct about what’s going on, is there any way to fiddle around with the speed at which they strobe, or is it something inherent in the hardware? Or am I just talking nonsense anyway?

2

From the product page.

The display is updated one row at a time (but very quickly, so you won’t notice!) by selecting one of the SR1 … 7 pins which control the row driving FETs.

Column data is fed into shift registers via SIN / SCLK and then LATCH ed to hold during display. BLANK enables the column driving FETs to turn on the LEDs and produce the image.

I would say yes you got it right. =)

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3

A static image, one that’s not changing or being updated may photograph OK?