Help Connecting A Neopixel Ring

Thanks robertl284, i just wanted to have the ring change colors on cooand or when talking. curtently i have npt be missing with my robot latly. i will do more reading as time premits. i have no time right now. i am going to give the credit to you as you are the closest to gave a good answer.

thanks.

@Merne, I am now to this point and have ordered the parts needed to make this work. I will load the sketch onto an android mini and send it to you when I know I have it working. I will also let you know how I have it all wired up and all the other bits of info. It may be a bit of time, but i'll get it to you.

I have not connected it to an ez-b but I have used a pololu astar arduino board to control neopixels with TTL serial commands using a modification of this arduino sketch.

https://www.tigoe.com/pcomp/code/arduinowiring/1172/

The mod I made was to use serial1 instead of serial. The astar uses a 32u4 processor which has a second serial port on pins 0 and 1. Just had pin 0 of the astar hooked up to a TTL serial source ( the equivalent of a ez-b digital signal pin). What I was sending it was the equivalent to using the ARC sendserial command. (e.g. SendSerial(d0, 9600, "C0,255,0,0" ) ).The ez-b command causes ez-b port d0 to send a string that writes neopixel 0 to bright red. You don't need a full UART to control the arduino since it never sends anything back to the ez-b so any digital port like d0 would work.

The other change I made to the arduino sketch was to change define PIN 13 to define PIN 6 . This lets you connect the neopixel DIN pin to pin 6 of the pololu astar.

Cool, I will have to check that out.

If you are using the ez-b with the lipo battery pack a pololu astar 32u4 mini LV might be the arduino to use as it runs off of 2.7 to 11 volts and has an on-board switching regulator that has up to 1 amp of extra 5V power capacity to run the neopixels with. That extra power should be enough for a couple of the smaller neopixel rings.

My ez-b is embedded in a robot so I can't test it with an ez-b myself.

Thanks Robert. I will look into it. All of mine are on a shelf right now so when the mini comes in I will play with it and see if I can't release some smoke

Here is the code I was playing with. When I did it I apparently just added the Serial1 feature in and left the original code there as a backup.

/* Simple BlinkyStrip control

This sketch allows serial control over a BlinkyStrip. To set any pixel in the strip, send the following serial string:

Cr,g,b

r, g, and b are ASCII numbers for the red, green, and blue brightness levels, from 0 to 255.

This will probably work for any string of NeoPixels from Adafruit as well.

Uses Adafruit's NeoPixel library: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_NeoPixel

created 4 Dec 2014 by Tom Igoe

*/ #include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#define PIN 6

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(60, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

int pixel = 0; // pixel number that you're changing int red = 0; // red value int green = 34; // green value int blue = 12; // blue value

void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); // initialize serial communication Serial.setTimeout(10); // set serial timeout Serial1.begin(9600); // initialize serial communication Serial1.setTimeout(10); // set serial timeout strip.begin(); // initialize pixel strip strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off' }

void loop() { // listen for serial: if (Serial.available() > 0) { if (Serial.read() == 'C' ) { // string should start with C pixel = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for pixel number red = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for red green = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for green blue = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for blue } } if (Serial1.available() > 0) { if (Serial1.read() == 'C' ) { // string should start with C pixel = Serial1.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for pixel number red = Serial1.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for red green = Serial1.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for green blue = Serial1.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for blue } } strip.setPixelColor(pixel, red, green, blue);// set the color for this pixel strip.show(); // refresh the strip }

Thanks for the example. I think I am going to start with something like this.

/*
Simple BlinkyStrip control

This sketch allows serial control over a BlinkyStrip.
To set any pixel in the strip, send the following serial string:

Cr,g,b

r, g, and b are ASCII numbers for the red, green, and blue brightness
levels, from 0 to 255.

This will probably work for any string of NeoPixels from Adafruit as well.

Uses Adafruit's NeoPixel library: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_NeoPixel

created 4 Dec 2014
by Tom Igoe

*/
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#define PIN 6

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(16, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

int pixel = 0; // pixel number that you're changing
int red = 0; // red value 
int green = 34; // green value
int blue = 12; // blue value

void setup() 
{
  Serial.begin(9600); // initialize serial communication
  Serial.setTimeout(10); // set serial timeout
  strip.begin(); // initialize pixel strip
  strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off'
}

void loop() 
{
  // listen for serial:
  if (Serial.available() > 0) 
    {
    if (Serial.read() == 'C' ) 
      { // string should start with C
        pixel = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for pixel number
        red = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for red
        green = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for green
        blue = Serial.parseInt(); // then an ASCII number for blue
      }
    }

  
   for (int i=0; i<260; i+10)
   {
    delay(50);
    strip.setBrightness(i);
    for (int j=0; j < 16; j++)
    {
      strip.setPixelColor(j, red, green, blue);// set the color for this pixela
    }
    strip.show(); // refresh the strip
   }
   for (int i=250; i > 0; i-10)
   {
    delay(50);
    strip.setBrightness(i);
    for (int j=0; j < 16; j++)
    {
      strip.setPixelColor(j, red, green, blue);// set the color for this pixela
    }
    strip.show(); // refresh the strip
   }
}