hi! did somebody controlled led strips wireless? and how?

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hi!

did somebody controlled led strips wireless? and how?

:smiley:

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Hi Leo,
yup. I did this with the ESP8266 WiFi SoC. It has enough power to drive mass of LEDs and has builtin WiFi.
Another solution (also with ESP8266) is to drive DMX devices by WiFi. I use simple MAX485 chip (TTL to RS485) with arduino library for DMX.
Both solutions works perfect for me

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Thank you very much Jürgen for your answer. I was checking on the same direction and I came across in Ebay with this 2 boards:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ESP8266-ESP-12E-UART-WIFI-Wireless-Shield-for-Arduino-UNO-R3-/331751696966?hash=item4d3df12a46:g:CAkAAOSwL7VWk2jN

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ESP8266-Web-Sever-Wireless-WiFi-Shield-Module-Board-ESP-13-For-Arduino-UNO-R3-/131607163084?hash=item1ea465f0cc:g:l0YAAOSwWnFV-9jb

Which one is the one you used for your project?

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I use the raw ESP8266 ESP-12E module on self designed PCB. But you can use these one (small and enough pins to use)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/D1-Mini-NodeMcu-4M-bytes-Lua-WIFI-Development-Board-ESP8266-by-WeMos-/262260783027?hash=item3d0ff5f7b3:g:4pYAAOSwpzdWp79V

it called WeMos di mini (it also has USB-programmer built in with auto-flash/reset mode)
On http://aliexpress.com you can buy them for 4USD

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Or you can use one of these NodeMcu boards:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NodeMcu-Lua-CH340G-ESP8266-Wireless-WIFI-Internet-Development-Board-Module-/321872017403?hash=item4af11137fb:g:FZcAAOSwFnFV~9D6

or on aliexpress for less then 4USD
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/V3-Wireless-module-NodeMcu-4M-bytes-Lua-WIFI-Internet-of-Things-development-board-based-ESP8266-for/32470199417.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.141.UPRqfe&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_7,searchweb201644_2_505_506_503_504_301_502_10001_10002_10017_10010_10005_10011_10006_10003_10004_10009_401_10008,searchweb201560_3,searchweb1451318400_-1,searchweb1451318411_6450&btsid=cca15376-edf1-459e-9d52-02df96a56e8a

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Hi iam trying to do the same with a NodeMcu Lua CH340G ESP8266 Wireless WIFI Internet Development Board Module but am having no joy can anyone help

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so lets see if I get it correctly. I could run a programm on a powerful arduino such as mega 2560, and instead of sending the data straight to the led strip, I send it via wifi to the NodeMcu, that will then send the signal via digital output to the led strip.

yes?

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Since some days I use the wemos d1 mini and I am very satisfied. For controlling I use the app blynk. These app is very easy to program but you need Internet connection on the phone and esp. http://www.blynk.cc/

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The esp8266 is way more powerful than the mega2560.

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You can use any ESP8266 derivate (except ESP-05)
You might have missed my post 2 days ago https://plus.google.com/116700996827719272404/posts/3eEPjkVzAJ1

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thanks guys for the info!

could somebody confirm if what I say is correct?

I want to run a programm in arduino mega, and send it wifi to the led strips. So I would connect the led strips to this little esp-based boards and I still need a wifi shield for my arduino mega, right? What board would you suggest?

In the case of @Lars_Walpurgis he is using his phone to send data to the boards.

What are you using @Jurgen_Skrotzky ?

:slight_smile:

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Why do you want to use the MEGA? The only thing what you need is the ESP (that also runs the FastLED animations) and a browser - done.

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@Leo_Bettinelli I’m using MQTT protocoll to send messages. My ESP8266 subscribes to some topics and get the messages. Pull out the data and send it out to the LED strips by FastLED.
But you can also make a WiFi brigde with two ESP8266 modules. One has some buttons etc. as input and sending the data over WiFi
the second ESP8266 is receiving the data and sending it out to LED Strip.

So you do not need the expensive and slow Arduino boards anymore

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@Leo_Bettinelli
I use only the phone to control the effects, set brightness… The LEDs are controlles by the ESP8266. You dont need a Arduino. Next week I will make a short video about my new project…

@Jurgen_Skrotzky
MQTT is very interesting too. Do you have an example how it works? How is the speed of this? Who is the MQTT broker?
Thanks.

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@Lars_Walpurgis
MQTT is awesome and fast on ESP8266.
For my installations I have a small broker on an ODROID-C1 - also with some fancy webservices to configure bindings etc…

It is not yet open source - but I hope to finish the stable new version soon - and put everything online under MIT.

But if you want to try out MQTT - this will be the library of your choice:

Many and handy examples included
They also have OTA update via MQTT. So you can stream a bin file through mqtt to all ESP8266 controller, which are subscribing the topic for OTA updates :wink:

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Thanks @Jurgen_Skrotzky I will try it! Sounds very good

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for me the thing is that I am using an arduino mega 2560 that reads bitmap from an sd card.

I like very much to work like this, and I was hoping to be able to send THIS information via wifi to the led strips.

could you check it out and give me your opinion? I really appreciate it

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@Leo_Bettinelli ​, you can also connect and load files from SD card also direct by Esp8266. It is in most cases compatible to arduino boards. Without one issue, it is hard to use interrupts, because the wifi stack is handled on the same mcu, which makes it hard to stay real real-time

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ok. thanks for the data. I will have to study all the commentaries in details, since in most of them there are terms with which I am not familiar and are taken for granted. everything is quite new for me.

The reason I am stucked in using my project in which I use Mega, is because I have it running already. I though on simply adding wifi funcionality in order to send the data wireless to the led strips. Why would I modify my current set up if it is 50% already done? Which are the benefits?