I can not longer use the BlinkM for Alan's eyes as they have modified the hardware and voltage requirements etc. so I'm looking for other options. The neopixels blaster would be perfect but looks like it's not on the production line yet.
...I'm really only looking at trying to get ez Builder to control a single neopixels color cycle, fade, brightness, control on and off. I'd like to be able to use sliders like the blink M control (rgb ). Any ideas or other options I'm overlooking?
Asked
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If you look at that sketch you define your neopixel type with this line
Code:
Maybe you can just enter a 1 there for pixels. Then you could use the fade function tailored to your needs to control that one pixel.
Code:
I would need to research this combo to get it to work but I would start there. Realize this is not my script and I did not write the tutorial.
Perry
Sorry i thought you had written up that tut. But that is exactly the two functions , color and fade i'm looking to adjust. I'll look into it further.
@DJ, Got it! Thanks.
Code:
Those are all the parameters to set it up. I infer from this that you probable could make it a 2 LED strip with left eye being 1 and the right eye 2 since the Flora LED's can be daisy chained.
There may be easier ways to do this. Would be nice to go directly from EZB to a neopixel without intermediate hardware.
I'm spending way too much time on this as its just his eyes but so much of who he is, is in the color of his eyes. I like to attach emotional responses to the eyes and color. The BlinkM was perfect for this.
I just went to Frys electronics and got a few regular RGB LEDs and I cant get them to exhibit the same brightness and smooth transistion with PWM as I get with a neopixel or the BlinkM.
I have a few Gemmas here to play with, But I"ll order the Flora Pro because they are so dang powerful in a small size. I'm going to start with the mobile example that PTP sent through earlier today.
However, you can see the neopixel blaster working on its manual page. Access manual pages in the learn section or by pressing the question mark on the control in ARC.
There will always have the need for hardware to control neopixel units. This is due to timing constraints - and why there are so many neopixel controllers. Or, the easiest is to simply use an arduino. Maybe a teensy or one of the super tine arduinos, if the CPU is fast enough for the timing.
Maybe preorder DIY items, hire out someone to make the boards by hand in batches of 100. That way the wait time is shorter and no production overhead. Might be better than a kickstarter because let’s face it your DIY guys are here in this forum. That way you wouldn’t have to give Kickstarter a % of your profits. I wouldn’t mind paying a higher price to get items on the coming soon’ to help pay for manufacturing.
But back on topic I will use a ardurino comparable board for this and swap out when the pixel blaster becomes available
I may have a few questions for you as I progress. You mind if I bug you ?
Links for reference on the Dotstars are:
https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/2343/APA102C.pdf
I ran across a blog that addressed programing them a little at:
https://cpldcpu.com/2014/11/30/understanding-the-apa102-superled/
There is an arduino library to use them available thru adafruit. Or an LED driver library called FASTLED. Just post here and I will reply with whatever help I can give.
I wish I knew how to make plugins. Seems to me that a plug-in could do most of the work.
In the mean time I’m back to the neopixels. I’m going to load up the code from tutorials page onto a Adafruit Gemma (ardurino mini) I have and test to see if I can do what I want ( color fade, almost like a 2 color rainbow) with sliders.
The Adafruit Gemma does not have a standard serial port available. The fix is to use the arduino "SoftwareSerial Library". Be sure to assign the Serial Port pin in the code with the SoftwareSerial Library on the original Gemma.
The Adafruit Gemma M0 does have standard serial ports available. Not sure how the serial interface works on the Gemma M0. I don't have one. There should be documentation on it somewhere on the Adafruit site.
I have not tinkered with the arduino mini serial port setup so I can't give you any hints on it. should be documentation on using serial ports with it as well.
Just be sure you modify the pins correctly in the code for what you need.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2000