First timer

[AlexCharp]

Hey, i want to start using micro controlers to do small animations w/ LED's or even EL, i dont want to do anything to fancy, just some basic stuff

Thanks in advance

--Alex

[Turd]

IMO the PICAXE chips are the way to go. The start up cost can be very low. If you can find a serial cable then all you need to buy is the chip(s) the Editor/Compiler program is free


eric

[Project_Nightmare]

Basically, there are a lot of chips out there that can do LED animations. The 555 chip and the Johnson Counter are great at doing simple LED patterns. If you want to do some thing more complex, I suggest looking into programming the PIC (Microchip.com), PICAXE (what Turd suggested and I never read anything about online) or Atmel's chips (Atmel.com).

IMHO, I would suggest PIC because Microchip is nice by giving out free samples of their chips and there are more projects that I've seen use them. Also, the programmer that they sell is quite cheap (maybe cheaper than the DIY programmers) only being $34. (also don't buy the starter kit or the debug kit, because you'll most likely never use them)