Help: Any idea for Project design PIC + LED's

Anyone please I need some help/idea on how to implement this PIC/microcontroller project:

I need to implement a PIC project ( possibly 16F84) that controlles 8 set of LED that can turn ON/OFF and any of this LED can, according to program parameter, display 7 color. In another words I need to controll a 8X7 matrix that all 8 ROW are ON and controll the 7 column to display one colored LED (white or blue or green or red or yellow ..... take on 7 different color) one ROW can take on one of 7 different color.

and possibly controll 3 different matrix.

I am not a PIC expert so from your side I would like to have any suggestion if first of all this is possible and if so if it can be implemented with PIC 16F84 i have a couple of them around.

what about pic port A drives a 1x8 decoder
port B drives 1x7decoder

repeate above 3 times over.... with remaining port or pin output.

thanx for your IDEAS

wafer101

Have you ever think about in a digital voltimeter? if you pic have a A/D, try this, it's a very nice project. Or, with your matrix of leds, you can build a eletronic painel, like those that stay in runways to advice drivers, or like those used for appertising...This is also a very nice project....good luck

Breno

Thank U for your reply.

well I never thought of trying this LED for advertisment project simply because my application although uses LED it is somehow different and more complex I think. as I seid above it is a 3 8x8 independent matrix .

the Q is how to start suck thing which PIC to use (PIC16F84 or other....) any idea on the architecture to implement?......

thanx for Ur reply
wafer101

your project seems simple.

one advice regarding which PIC to use, if you need many output ports, perhaps 16F84 's ports may not be enough for your application. as for my case i am using PIC16F877a, it has about twice as much ports as the F84 has.

also, you can try I/O Port Expanders to be able to have more ports possible, but i must remind you that this Port Expander works on i2c (inter-integrated circuit) so this will be an additional thing to study ( and hopefully not much of a burden to you).

regards,
elizabeth ann