Hi all,
Is there any simple, cheap way to wirelessly connect ledstrips to Arduino ? The led strips would be plugged to power, the arduino would have its own power source but then a wireless chip (IR maybe?) would send the commands from the arduino to the leds. For example when I press a button, wired to the arduino, the arduino would then send the info to the led strips. Feasible ? thanks a lot for any precious info/diy project/tuto/videos that could help understand how to do it !
Cheapest method is to use a single Arduino directly connected to a strip of WS2801’s or APA102’s (NOT WS2812’s) and to use an IR controller/receiver.
After that, would be two Arduino’s connected wired serially. First would use the IR combination. The second could then be connected to WS2812’s or APA102’s or WS2801’s.
Assuming the former, I recommend looking up and experimenting with Ken Shiriff’s IR library. Alternatively, Nico Hood also has a nice IR library (which I use).
Expanding on Andrew’s excellent recommendations: you can use IR with a Teensy 3.2 with any type of LED, including WS2812. Also, I’ve had a great experience with Particle Photon, which is very similar to the Teensy, but with Wi-Fi built in and a great cloud API, for just $19.
I would use the Photon, and skip the IR altogether. Then you can setup your Photon REST API to do what you want, or create a UDP connection to do what you want.
Thank you all for your answers.
Andrew : why not ws2812 for first option ? any IR controller/receiver in mind ? what about a nRF24L01+ as another wireless option ? I will look for Ken Shiriff and Nico Hood’s libraries.
Jason : the Teensy would work with arduinos ? I have a Spark.io (former Particle Photon) for another project but didn’t have time yet to play with it, I forgot about that option as well, but more expensive.
Peter : so the led strip connected to a Photon that would receive the info, and for the two game controllers (see below), what would be the transmetter ?
I am really looking for something super easy : one led strip, connected to an Arduino, with a receptor, a small speaker and power supply. Wirelessly I would have two game controllers composed of microswitchs to send the position signal (pressed/not pressed) and a MPU6050 accelerometer to send the position signal as well (and small power supply for each). I wonder if such data can be sent via IR, or only via wifi or bluetooth ? what would you recommend as cheapest components ? the two game controllers will never be at more than 4meters from the led strip. I have ws2811 but I will buy a new led strip as the one that I have has leds 3 by 3.
You have some bigger design hurdles than what connects to the LED strip in this case I think. What I hear you asking is, “Can I plug something directly into an LED strip and use a micro to send it data?”
The answer is yes, but it’s another micro. You haven’t really defined what your sender is yet, network, IR, BT, Zigbee, etc, and how you plan to connect all of this stuff. That one decision will drive what micros you can use, and what strips you can use most effectively.
At a minimum, you will need one sender micro and one receiver micro, which is connected to the LED strip. Based on your previous comments, the receiver needs to be a Teensy (http://www.pjrc.com) or a Photon (http://particle.io) as those are relatively low cost, high power, and can handle either IR or network without issues with latency/interrupts/etc.
Using WS2812 (NeoPixels), with FastLED on most Arduinos requires disabling interrupts, which IR libraries require. So you either have to use another Arduino to receive IR and then send the commands via Serial, or just use a higher-powered Arduino compatible board like the Teensy. I’ve used this IR receiver: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10266 with a variety of different remotes, including this one: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11759
Yes, Teensy is Arduino-compatible, and Paul spends a lot of time and effort on maintaining it: https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy32.html
Particle Photons are about the same price as the Teensy, and cheaper than an Arduino Uno or Mega.
You’ll have a hard time handling two different IR remotes at once. They’ll likely interfere with each other. If you want simple and cheap, you’d be better off using wired controllers.
@Peter_Buelow Thanks Peter, I’ll go with the Photon as the receiver micro. Connected to the led strip (ws2811) and power supply (12v). i’ll add a small speaker for some noise effects. Fastled will do the magic.
on the other side, i’ll have 2 game controllers, each composed of one microswitch, one MPU6050 accelerometer, one power supply (aaa batteries) and one sender micro.
any idea of what sender micro could do the trick and work with the Photon ? nrf24L01+ would do the trick ?
@Jason_Coon you are correct, the IR will interfere and I might add more than 2 controllers after, so I’ll stick with the Photon and do the stuff via Wifi. However I keep the Teensy + IR in mind as this can be usefull, thanks Jason !