Schematic diagram for scanning backlight

NOTE: This is a very old article.
Newer article is Electronics Hacking: Creating a Strobe Backlight.

This is a simplified schematic diagram for a home-made scanning backlight driven by an Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform.The Arduino monitors the VSYNC signal (input-lag compensated) and executes a backlight scanning sequence, using ultra-short strobes of super bright LED’s per segment. This greatly reduces motion blur. For the brightness required for ultra-short strobes, reels of LED ribbonsΒ totalling thousands of LED’s will be used instead of individual LED’s.

Note: This is a draft diagram. It may be missing some supplemental components (e.g. resistors at MOSFET gates).

EDIT: This is a very old article. Please see Electronics Hacking: Creating a Strobe Backlight for current information.