Baby steps with addressable LED strips

Using Arduino LEDs and Multiplexing
1

Hi everyone. I am very much just getting started, so I appreciate your patience. Having worked through Getting Started with Arduino, I've set my sights on a first project - controlling an addressable LED strip (this one from Adafruit https://www.adafruit.com/products/738 of course) with my arduino uno. Not surprisingly, I've found myself way out of my depth.

Ultimately I would like to be able to have a number of the LEDs turn on and stay a constant color while others slowly glow and pulse and change colors. But that is a long, long way off.

For now, all I really want to be able to do is to instruct a single LED on the strip. Essentially, I want to be able to do the simple things I learned to do to an LED connected directly to the board in Massimo's book, only to an LED of my choice on my strip. I am assuming that once I can do that, I will be able to build off of that and control a second, and a third, and then, well, you get the idea.

Unfortunately, the adafruit tutorial and example code seem to blow past that stage and move into fancy multi-bulb flashing. This is great, but I'm trying to find something that will ease me into this even slower. Does anyone have any tips for finding something even simpler?

thanks

2

The amazing thing about OS is that you can find anything, anywhere.

The easiest thing to do is search "WS2801 Example Code"....and there are lots of examples.

I found this one, this may be able to help you

http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/LED/LED_Strip_Example.pde

3

Thanks cub526! I've been searching all afternoon but hadn't hit on a string that was kicking up anything helpful. This looks like a fantastic path forward.

4

Check out this thread I started a few weeks ago

I went from hooking it up to being able to address each one restfully over ethernet.

5

Thank you AceoStar. This looks like a much more ambitious project, but I'd love to get to an ethernet controlling place. I'll take a look at your sketch and see what I can figure out.