Some photos of my new LED cyr wheel.

Corbin_Dunn · April 9, 2016, 9:35pm

Some photos of my new LED cyr wheel. I’m using FastLED for some portions, but wrote my own controller subclass for the APA102s to allow me to use multiple SPI devices on a Teensy 3.2.
http://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2016/04/led-cyr-wheel-v3-initial-photos/

Gregg_Novosad · April 21, 2016, 1:15am

Great work. Love the sequences. I really liked some of ideas, but it is always easier to study the code to see how it is done.

Do you have to code available?

Corbin_Dunn · April 21, 2016, 2:47am

Thanks! I haven’t made the code public. I go back and forth on it, but have opted not to at this time. I might turn it into a product I sell someday, and there is potential competition from other people that also want to make LED cyr wheels. I’ve shared my construction techniques on the wheels, and a few people have mimicked it (and I was glad to help them figure out stuff!)

I’ve spent vast amounts of time on the code. I have a companion desktop app I wrote that connects to the wheel via bluetooth to control it. It can dynamically change patterns, upload new patterns, and new images. The code is abstract and portable enough where I can easily make it run on Mac OS (or any platform for that matter).

The desktop app also has a full fledged timeline editor to create sequences and simulate the patterns. It’s gobs easier for debugging code.

I’m happy to help people and give advice on code design; my “day job” is as a software engineer. The best advice I can give people is to not do any delay() calls, and instead create at timing mechanism on when to update pixels.

Gregg_Novosad · April 21, 2016, 3:15am

I am building a similar application, for drone racing where there are numerous scenes at various count down cycles. It would be nice to have a timeline editor. I did it through 2 dimensional array to control multiple parameters of each scene. Was thinking of doing a sql light application the exports the array.

But I really liked your sine / gravity / bounce functions. I want to do something for my Start gate. We have wireless receivers spread all around the track synced to the master clock, so the entire track is a light symphony.

Great job on the advanced implementation.

Corbin_Dunn · April 21, 2016, 3:37am

Yeah, what I do is export things to a really simple binary file format and read it in. The file will reference images on an SD card and “play” them based on parameters.

The gravity/bounce pattern I based off this code:

github.com

daterdots/LEDs/blob/master/BouncingBalls2014/BouncingBalls2014.ino

//  BouncingBalls2014 is a program that lets you animate an LED strip
//  to look like a group of bouncing balls
//
//  Daniel Wilson, 2014
//
//  With BIG thanks to the FastLED community!
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#include "FastLED.h"

#define NUM_LEDS          120
#define DATA_PIN          11
#define COLOR_ORDER       GRB
#define CHIPSET           NEOPIXEL
#define BRIGHTNESS        255
#define GRAVITY           -1              // Downward (negative) acceleration of gravity in m/s^2
#define h0                1                  // Starting height, in meters, of the ball (strip length)
#define NUM_BALLS         6                  // Number of bouncing balls you want (recommend < 7, but 20 is fun in its own way)

float h[NUM_BALLS] ;                         // An array of heights
float vImpact0 = sqrt( -2 * GRAVITY * h0 );  // Impact velocity of the ball when it hits the ground if "dropped" from the top of the strip

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Which I originally saw posted here on FastLED!