Awesome idea to used FTDI GPIO to control LED strip such as APA102 and WS2811
I’ve just find link form hackday that used FTDI capability to conquer disadvantages of Arduino speed & memory shortage then control huge amount of LED directly from PC with huge capability of software such as C#, I’ve just quoted from them
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The FTDI cable can provide significantly higher throughput than using a microcontroller such as Arduino as a PC-to-pixel bridge, costs less, and by centralizing all code on the PC host. Using an Arduino as a PC-to-pixel bridge is limited to the maximum serial speed of 115,200 bits per second. Each Total Control Lighting pixel must receive 32 bits of data, yielding a theoretical absolute upper refresh rate of 3,600 pixels per second (or 120 pixels at 30 Hz, and so forth). Using an FTDI adapter as the PC-to-pixel bridge, the data rate can in some cases push upwards of eight million bits per second. The simple FTDI cable can transfer up to 45,000 pixels/second (or about 1,500 pixels at 30 Hz) while the full FTDI breakout board can manage up to 240,000 pixels/second (about 8,000 pixels at 30 Hz). Actual throughput will vary with the number of pixel strands and the host computer’s ability to render frames at these rates, but most modern PCs should be able to keep up with something close to those numbers.
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I think if rich library such as FastLED revised is the way that could be used in C# platform , it can perform project such as high resolution(large matrix screen) online video rendering
While there are folks who use it that way, FastLED’s focus really isn’t the “generate your led data and imagery on the computer and use the arduino as a dumb frame buffer to push out led data” — there are other projects far better suited for that (see fadecandy and the ledscape for beaglebone).
My continued emphasis and focus for the library is setups where the MCU (be it arduino avr or teensy arm or some other small MCU setup) is the centerpiece and source of animation - in no small part because this is what my projects require.
If someone wants to pull FastLED’s functionality into a C# library for abusing FTDI off of a computer, they should do it! However, that would be a new project, and I suspect would very quickly fork off from FastLED itself.
yes , it is true Daniel , but I think the novelty of any new software & hardware tools such as FTDI.LED and FastLED is how to remove limitations , I remember how FastLED help me to pass my limitation and extend capabilities and I believe it will be more powerful when boned with such library
As I said - someone is more than welcome to take on that as a project - it is far enough outside of my personal goals/uses for FastLED that I am unlikely to do it - there just isn’t enough time in the world.