Does anyone know where I can find an example of a sketch that has a demonstration on how to have one program work on two different lengths of strips on different pins? For example I want to know the best way to get a “dot” to move from one strip to another just through programming, not because they’re physically wired together. Say 45 LEDs on pin 10 and 120 LEDs on pin 9, but you want the program to use them as one 165 LED strip.
I guess I didn’t read deeply enough. I think I can figure it out.
One array many strips
Hi @Kyle_Halvorson , I agree you want to specifically look at the One array, many strips section.
I actually used that method with my Xmas tree that has 34 different branches of varying lengths from 4 to 13 LEDs where each branch is . connected to a different pin on a Arduino MEGA. So 34 different pins used on my MEGA !!
Here’s a short cut and paste from my working sketch…
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 52>(leds, 0, 13); // White branch #1
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 50>(leds, 13, 13); // White branch #2
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 19>(leds, 26, 13); // White branch #3
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 20>(leds, 39, 13); // White branch #4
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 21>(leds, 52, 13); // White branch #5
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 40>(leds, 65, 13); // White branch #6
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 38>(leds, 78, 12); // Orange branch #1
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 36>(leds, 90, 12); // Orange branch #2
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 32>(leds, 102, 12); // Orange branch #3
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, 30>(leds, 114, 12); // Orange branch #4
etc… etc…
@JP_Roy I’ll do some coding tonight and see what I can get to work. This should at least help a lot! Thanks.
@JP_Roy so just so I’m understanding correctly, that setup will treat the LEDs on all the pins as one continuous length? So run a sketch that has a dot moving across the array of “leds” and it’ll start at pin 52 first, then 50, then 19 and so on? As if it were one continuous strip?
So
FastLED.addleds<chipset, data pin>(name of array, starting number in array for this pin, number of leds in this “sub-array”);
More or less?
Hi @Kyle_Halvorson , yes it does treat the LEDs as one continuous array and yes it automatically sends data to the correct pin as per its position in the array with FasLED.show();
@JP_Roy Such a life saver! Should be able to integrate this into what I’m doing just perfectly. Thank you! I have a bunch of LED tubes in my jeep, the grille, soon in the gap between the hood and the fenders, along the windshield and along the trim in the corners of the roof. Basically I want to treat that as a continuous strip but use multiple pins so I don’t have to worry about an LED losing connection and taking out the whole thing. It’ll just sorta work until I fix it. Haha
@Kyle_Halvorson The advantage of this for my Xmas tree is that I wanted to minimize the visible wiring in it. I did not have to daisy chain from the end of the 1st branch to the beginning of the 2nd branch etc… etc…
Good luck with that project, sounds like a great idea !!!
@JP_Roy yeah that makes perfect sense! I’ll post about it when it’s done. 
@JP_Roy it worked! I’ll get the LED tubes installed and post a video sometime in the next few days.