Hi Guys, Relatively new to the whole fastLED library but already keen on the

Bart-Jan_Herweijer · January 16, 2017, 11:25am

Hi Guys,

Relatively new to the whole fastLED library but already keen on the possibilities than lie within :).

I do have a couple of questions.
As I already did some research, I guess the fastLED port to Particle Photon does not have all the functionality available? I can’t initiate the CRGBArray or CRGBSize declarations… Will this be ported in the future? Or can I use these stuff within the Arduino IDE and compile it to the photon?

The other question is about declaring the arrays. I have a single WS2812 strip which I want to devide into (different sizes) sections/arrays. No problems on Arduino platform.
But how can I combine the different arrays into a new array (say section 3, section 6, section 9). I will be using these LEDs in a sculpture pyramid shape, and would like to light up different sections of it (base, middle, top).

If needed I can add code, but it is more or less a global question I presume. Is there a way to ‘concate’ the different arrays in a new array?

Thanks in advance, love how active this community is

Jason_Coon · January 17, 2017, 2:33pm

Correct, Particle has their own library format, and it doesn’t support some of the more complicated libraries like FastLED. So right now it’s a fork. As soon as Particle fixes their library support, FastLED might integrate it directly (like all other boards). There are no plans to pull the latest changes into the Particle fork (see the announcement pinned to the top of this group for more information). Particle also doesn’t support the Arduino IDE. I’d recommend the RedBear Duo, which is very similar to the Photon, supports the Particle Cloud, FastLED, and the Arduino IDE. Or an ESP8266 board like the Wemos D1 Mini.

Regarding your other question on arrays: if you can switch away from the Photon, take a look at these CRGBset examples:

github.com

marmilicious/FastLED_examples/blob/master/CRGBSet_example.ino

// Marc Miller, Jan 2016

#include "FastLED.h"
#define NUM_LEDS 32

//CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];  // Not using this.  Using CRGBArray instead.
CRGBArray<NUM_LEDS> leds;

CRGBSet partA(leds(6,9));  // Define custom pixel range with a name.
CRGBSet partB(leds(22,25));  // Define custom pixel range with a name.

CHSV colorOne(0,222,255);  // Define a custom color.
CHSV colorTwo(82,222,255);  // Define a custom color.

//---------------------------------------------------------------
void setup() { 
  FastLED.addLeds<LPD8806, 11, 13, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS);
  FastLED.setBrightness(255);
}

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github.com

marmilicious/FastLED_examples/blob/master/CRGBSet_7segment_2digits.ino

//***************************************************************
//  Two digit seven segment number display example using CRGBArray and CRGBSet.
//  A number from 0-99 can be displayed.  This demo repeats counting from 0 to 25.
//
//  For this example the number segments are wired in the following layout:
//  http://imgur.com/cgabMfK
//  It also assumes that each segment has the same number of pixels.  There is
//  a variable below which allows the number of pixels per segment to be changed.
//
//  This example uses 5 Pixels Per Segment (pps).
//  5pps x 7segments x 2digits = 70 pixels total
//
//
//  Marc Miller, Oct 2016
//  (There is also a 3digit version of this sketch now, added Feb 2019.)
//***************************************************************

#include "FastLED.h"

#define DATA_PIN    11

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Bart-Jan_Herweijer · January 17, 2017, 2:45pm

Hey Jason,
Thank you for the response. Actually I was prototyping on the redbear duo instead of a Photon, so that is fortunate. I was just digging in the whole cloud based ide and output to the cloud. Ideally I would love to have it a nice webinterface and thought particle cloud was an easy way of doing that. When I will be home I will dig deeper in the examples provided think I might learn a thing or two from the seven segments example.
So basically if you want a new array to extend more arrays it is like:
array 10 { array3 = array6 = array9} ?