Serial Communication and LED Control SK9822

[authenticatecontinuity]

Hello Everyone,

The vision for my project is for python to read my body's position from a webcam, send the coordinate data from my laptop to an Elegoo Uno R3 serial port, which controls the characteristics of my SK9882 light strip using fastLED library.

Problem: Everything works great by itself, but the serial communication and light strip freeze when I run them at the same time. After a few seconds of running the program, the serial monitor stops displaying new data (often cutting off with a backwards question mark) and the LED strip will shut off or stop responding

I thought my problem was interrupts, and switched from the WS2812b to the SK9882 because this blog post said that might be the problem. However, I am still getting the same behavior.

My goal is for serial communication and fastLED can operate smooth and fast so that I can record dances that change the lights in my room. Here is my Arduino Code:

#include <FastLED.h>

#define DATA_PIN 6
#define CLK_PIN 5
#define LED_TYPE SK9822
#define COLOR_ORDER BGR
#define NUM_LEDS 150
#define BRIGHTNESS 5
CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];

static boolean recvInProgress = false;
const byte numChars = 32;
char receivedChars[numChars];
char tempChars[numChars];        // temporary array for use when parsing

// variables to hold the parsed data
int x = 0;
int y = 0;
int z = 0;

const int rows = 6;
const int cols = 2;
int data[rows][cols] = { { 1, 2}, { 3, 4}, { 5, 6}, { 7, 8}, { 9, 10}, { 11, 12}};

boolean newData = false;


void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  Serial.begin(38400);


  FastLED.addLeds<LED_TYPE, DATA_PIN, CLK_PIN, COLOR_ORDER>(leds, NUM_LEDS);
  FastLED.setBrightness(BRIGHTNESS);
  FastLED.clear();
  FastLED.show();



}

void loop() {

  runLights();
  recvWithStartEndMarkers();
  if (newData == true) {
    strcpy(tempChars, receivedChars);
    // this temporary copy is necessary to protect the original data
    //   because strtok() used in parseData() replaces the commas with \0
    parseData();
    showParsedData();
    newData = false;
  }
  
    FastLED.show();
  
  

}

//============

void runLights() {

  for (int j = 0; j < 6; j++) {
    Serial.print(j);
    Serial.print("/");
    Serial.print(data[j][0]);
    Serial.print("/");
    Serial.println(data[j][1]);
  }

  int hue1 = map(data[0][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int hue2 = map(data[1][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int hue3 = map(data[2][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int hue4 = map(data[3][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int hue5 = map(data[4][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int hue6 = map(data[5][0], 0, 640, 0, 255);
  int val = map(data[3][1], 0, 360, 255, 0);



  
  

  leds[0] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[1] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[2] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[3] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[4] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[5] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[6] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[7] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[8] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[9] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[10] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[11] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[12] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[13] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);
  leds[14] = CHSV(hue1, 255, 255);


}



void recvWithStartEndMarkers() {
  static boolean recvInProgress = false;
  static byte ndx = 0;
  char startMarker = '<';
  char endMarker = '>';
  char rc;

  while (Serial.available() > 0 && newData == false) {
    rc = Serial.read();

    if (recvInProgress == true) {
      if (rc != endMarker) {
        receivedChars[ndx] = rc;
        ndx++;
        if (ndx >= numChars) {
          ndx = numChars - 1;
        }
      }
      else {
        receivedChars[ndx] = '\0'; // terminate the string
        recvInProgress = false;
        ndx = 0;
        newData = true;
      }
    }

    else if (rc == startMarker) {
      recvInProgress = true;
    }
  }
}

//============

void parseData() {      // split the data into its parts

  char * strtokIndx; // this is used by strtok() as an index

  strtokIndx = strtok(tempChars, ",");      // get the first part - the string
  z = atoi(strtokIndx); // copy it to messageFromPC

  strtokIndx = strtok(NULL, ","); // this continues where the previous call left off
  x = atoi(strtokIndx);     // convert this part to an integer

  strtokIndx = strtok(NULL, ",");
  y = atoi(strtokIndx);     // convert this part to a float

  data[z][0] = x;
  data[z][1] = y;
}

//============

void showParsedData() {
  Serial.print("x: ");
  Serial.println(x);
  Serial.print("y: ");
  Serial.println(y);
  Serial.print("z: ");
  Serial.println(z);
}