Hi folks, been playing with led strips for a couple of years and dipping my oversize foot into the world of addressable LEDs. Picked up aa 5V APA 104 4M strip and found out about the FastLED libs. Have several flavors of Arduino (Duo, Nano, Mega, etc.) Would like to use the Nano, know I need a power supply and was wondering about anything else I might need. Are there circuit diagrams around? REALLY looking forward to using FastLED.
Mac OSX 10.10.
Arduino 1.06
FastLED 3.1
Connect + to +, gnd to gnd and data to a spare pin on the nano. The LEDs are on a serial bus, and the data (should) gets replicated as it passes down the line. The strips should have a direction indicator. The first LED is 0, the next is 1, etc. addressing is handled by the controller chips, you don’t need to worry about it -as long as you have continuity.
You can put a smoothing capacitor between the supply and gnd if you want.
I buy little 5a, 5v switch-mode PSU’s for about $6 ea to power them. If you gave a long string, power/gnd it at both ends to prevent drop-off.
It’s pretty basic.
If you are intending on making multi-channel, or matrix rigs, you will find others will have that information. When it comes to LED strings, I’m very conservative… One man, one channel, like the Great Photon intended…
For testing, I’ve just been using an old PC PSU. Being a switching supply, it only makes the watts I need. As appose to one of the bricks. The most I’ve seen so far is less than 40ma per, but they’re rated at 60, so budget accordingly…
@Mike_Thornbury Many thanks gentlemen!~!~! A lot simpler than I thought…
@Mat_Helm see my reply to Mike
Look forward to seeing what you make, @Joe_Banko .
I would update your version of Arduino IDE, though. The new one is real nice, especially on the Mac, and works just fine.
There are a number of people on here that are into performance pieces, I am sure you will be collaborating away in no time.
Got apiece of the strip working (gotta wait for my big honkin’ 20A to arrive) but on the FastLED 3 page I saw the APA104 as being supported but they’re not called out in the long list of lines to uncomment. Been using the WS2801 which seems to work but I’d really like to use the correct definition. I will say these little gems are a ton of fun!!
THX! Joe B
DUH… I guess the APA104 is covered by NeoPixel.
@Joe_Banko It’s identical to the ws2811/12b
Hey all,
Got my APA104 strip running nicely so I went to add DMX control. I have a CTC-DRA-10-1 and got it fired up and running with an Uno and a USB to DMX interface… So I wrote what I needed into the code I was using for the 104 strip. Also added some pots and switches to control pallettes, brightness, speed, etc. All of that was working. When I flipped the switch to go from manual to DMX control, nothing. I’ve spent the better part of a day changing code, jumpers, reading all I could find of docs. Still won’t work. If I comment out the manual side the DMX side will communicate with DMX but not take any ot the control branches in the code. Comment out theDMX side and the manual side works as it should. So my question is this; Can a DMX board (in straight Slave Mode) work concurrently with FastLed? If so can anyone point me at some example code.
Sorry for the length here but I do REALLY appreciate any help!!
Thanks again,
Joe B
BTW, thoroghly confused on how to post here other than adding comments to my first post which I did by accident
jb
4 days now and no answers. Tried Concipnetics and they pointed me at the example code which I’ve been banging my head against. Need help with this, PLEASE! Thanks,
jb
