My latest project is a 6.5' white tree with 250 WS2811 LEDs,

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My latest project is a 6.5’ white tree with 250 WS2811 LEDs, an ESP8266 microcontroller, controlled with a web app over WiFi and/or an infrared remote control. Currently at 35 procedural animations using a fully 3D mapped layout (X, Y, and Z axes, plus radius and angle), allowing scrolling and rotating in any direction.

More videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUYGVM-2vDxJKi8lgQGImMW3xGfPCup2E

Full write-up with parts list, pics, and details (maybe just short of a full tutorial): https://www.evilgeniuslabs.org/tree-v2.html
https://youtu.be/fpioieRDVrk?list=PLUYGVM-2vDxJKi8lgQGImMW3xGfPCup2E

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You and Stefan are pure gold!

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Zzzzeeeeeee! Where did I put my red/blue glasses? :wink:

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You’re costing me money :dollar: :wink: Great work!

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Wowwww. This is stunning. I was literally hypnotized for a minute.

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Thanks everyone! I cannot even imagine trying to create stuff like this without this amazing library and helpful community.

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This is, beyond a doubt, the best tree I’ve ever seen, and my wife now hates you for it, as she now sees the glimmer in my eyes and the $$$ leaving the account :slight_smile:
Thanks so much for sharing the detailed project, as I will definitely be gracing our home with it this year!

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looking amazing prob silly question but what is the SN74HCT245N Level Shifter used for gonna try this project

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Spectacular! Thank you for sharing your code.

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@dave_windsor the SN74HCT245N Level Shifter is used to convert the 3.3v logic level from the ESP8266 digital output pin to the 5v logic level that the WS2811 LEDs require. I’ve built a lot of projects that worked without using level shifters, but it never hurts.

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@Jason_Coon How are you liking the Wemos Mini Pro? Any noticeable difference with signal strength since it is using a ceramic antenna?

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@Brian_Lewis honestly, the only difference I’ve noticed is better reliability when uploading firmware & SPIFFS. I haven’t noticed a single failure with the Pro, used to have to retry fairly frequently. I don’t think the Arduino core has been updated to reflect the increased flash space. My projects so far have all been indoor and relatively short range.

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There is one important animation missing: Fire2012! :wink:

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@Thomas_Runge it’s at 1:45 in this video, and more at 1:30 here: https://youtu.be/EPT1tTUMgv4

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Jason Coon could you maybe also please add support for MQTT protocol? :smiley:

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@Marko_S I’m not familiar with MQTT. Can you explain your need for it? This tree project is already completely open source and open hardware, please feel free to add MQTT in a fork and submit a pull request: https://github.com/evilgeniuslabs/tree-v2

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Its the most popular protocol for iot. I need it for interfacing with home automation controller.

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@Jason_Coon I’m tackling your tree project and have the board all wired up and code and spiffs loaded but I have no idea how to access the web app. I’m using a mac. I tried the ip address. I installed jqueery and bootstrap and home brew (though really not sure what I was doing there). What am I missing? Any clues would be much appreciated!

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@Charity_Stolarz Cool! Have you uploaded the web app to SPIFFS? Have you set the SSID and password for your wireless network? You should be able to watch the serial monitor, it’ll print the IP address.

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yes and I get this:

Hostname: ESP8266-2c153c
Connecting to Castle Greyskull
HTTP web server started
Web socket server started
ip:192.168.1.15,mask:255.255.255.0,gw:192.168.1.1

The first 2 won’t load and says the server isn’t responding. The last ne just brings me to my router settings