I’ve soldered together a chain of Adafruit NeoPixels to create a circle.
I wanted my own LED strip that I could shape however I wanted, so I had to create my own. It would have been a lot easier to just purchase the ready-made light strip, but this one can be altered for the LEDs to point in any direction and stay that way.
I created a simple light show to test the strip.
I used blue tack to attach the NeoPixels to the desktop while soldering. This made the process a lot easier.
I finished the chain by gluing all the soldered points using a glue gun. This is to keep them from braking loose when I twist the chain.
The Code
I started by downloading and installing the Arduino NeoPixel library from Adafruit. Starting with the provided example named simple, I wrote the following:
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#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> // Which pin on the Arduino is connected to the NeoPixels? #define PIN 4 // How many NeoPixels are attached to the Arduino? #define NUMPIXELS 16 Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels = Adafruit_NeoPixel(NUMPIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800); void setup() { pixels.begin(); } int delayval = 100; unsigned char prevColor[NUMPIXELS] = {0}; unsigned char newColor[NUMPIXELS] = {0}; int red = 1, green = 9, blue = 4; int tailA = 10, tailB = 0; void tail(int *context, int len, unsigned char * prevColor, unsigned char * newColor, unsigned char maxColor, unsigned int divisor, bool invert) { if (invert) { if (--*context < 0) { *context = len-1; } } else { if (++*context >= len) { *context = 0; } } // For all pixels for (int i = 0; i < len; ++i) { newColor[i] = 0; if (*context == i) { newColor[i] = maxColor; } newColor[i] += (unsigned char)(((unsigned int)prevColor[i]*10) / (10+divisor)); prevColor[i] = newColor[i]; } } void loop() { if (++red > 9) { red = 1; } if (++green > 9) { green = 1; } if (++blue > 9) { blue = 1; } tail(&tailA, NUMPIXELS, prevColor, newColor, 230, 3, false); tail(&tailB, NUMPIXELS, prevColor, newColor, 230, 3, true); for (int i = 0; i < NUMPIXELS; ++i) { pixels.setPixelColor(i, pixels.Color(200/red, newColor[i]/green, 200/blue)); pixels.show(); } delay(delayval); } |
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