Hi,
I am pretty new to electronics, and I am lost as to what direction I need to be going in. I have a Wemos D1 mini powered by my PC and I am reading a serial output from a RJ-11 that connects to a fencing scoring machine called a Favero FA-05. I am trying to light up an LED strip according to the output of the serial connection. The LED strip is a 300 LED 16.4ft 5050SMD. I have a DC 5v 10a power supply with a barrel jack adapter. I understand this isn't an appropriate power supply, I am really just pushing 2 amps through the lights during this development. I will buy a more appropriate one later.
The corruption I am seeing is unexpected changes in a byte in my serial monitor output.
For example: a HEX string of when things are working without the LED power supply plugged in:
11:45:23.587 -> The message in HEX is: FF,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,30,0,
Then once I plug in the LED power supply (and nothing has changed on the fencing scoring machine), I get a bunch of output like this:
11:30:44.289 -> The message in HEX is: FF,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,10,0,
11:30:45.554 -> The message in HEX is: FF,7F,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
11:30:45.882 -> The message in HEX is: FF,FD,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
The issue I am coming across is that when I plug in the LED power supply, I start to get corruption/random output in the serial. The second I unplug the LED power, I am able to read the serial with no issues. I am thinking this is a noise issue, but I do not know for sure. I have tried adding capacitors for a noise filter, but I do not know if I am placing them in the correct spot.
I tried adding a 1μF capacitor between the LED power supply + and GND but I didn't see any difference. I also tried a 1000μF, and a 47μF. I also tried messing with the FastLED interrupt stuff, but I felt like that wasn't really relevant in this situation as I don't think I am missing the serial from an interrupt, I am getting false information on the serial output while the LED power supply is plugged in. Is my power supply just giving me "dirty" unstable power? Is there anything else I could try?
Code I am running:
#include <FastLED.h>
#define MY_NAME "REPEATER"
const unsigned int MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH = 10;
const unsigned int MAX_SERIAL_BUFFER_BYTES = 512;
const char STARTING_BYTE = 255;
const int FOTL_DATA = 16; // D2
const int FOTR_DATA = 15; // D1
const int NUM_LEDS = 300; // Number of LEDs in your LED strip/matrix
CRGB left[NUM_LEDS]; // FOTL LED array
CRGB right[NUM_LEDS]; // FOTR LED array
struct __attribute__((packed)) dataPacket {
int unsigned Right_Score;
int unsigned Left_Score;
int unsigned Seconds_Remaining;
int unsigned Minutes_Remaining;
bool Green_Light;
bool Red_Light;
bool White_Green_Light;
bool White_Red_Light;
bool Yellow_Green_Light;
bool Yellow_Red_Light;
bool Yellow_Card_Green;
bool Yellow_Card_Red;
bool Red_Card_Green;
bool Red_Card_Red;
bool Priority_Left;
bool Priority_Right;
};
// Shows if new data is available for display
bool new_data = false;
// Initializes Message_Position
unsigned int message_pos = 0;
void setup() {
FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, FOTL_DATA, GRB>(left, NUM_LEDS);
FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, FOTR_DATA, GRB>(right, NUM_LEDS);
FastLED.setMaxPowerInVoltsAndMilliamps(5, 8000);
Serial.setRxBufferSize(1024);
Serial.begin(2400); // initialize serial port
delay(10);
Serial.println();
Serial.println();
Serial.println();
Serial.print("Initializing...");
Serial.println(MY_NAME);
Serial.println("Initialized.");
}
void loop() {
EVERY_N_MILLISECONDS(200) {
wdt_reset();
}
dataPacket packet;
// Check to see if anything is available in the serial receive buffer
while (Serial.available() > 0) {
//EVERY_N_MILLISECONDS(500) {
//Serial.println("Checking available Serial Data.");
//}
// Create a place to hold the incoming message
static char message[MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH];
static char prev_message[MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH];
char inByte = Serial.read();
// Message coming in (check if starting character)
if (inByte == STARTING_BYTE) {
// Resets message position
message_pos = 0;
// Stores the Byte in the message position
message[message_pos] = inByte;
//increments message position
message_pos++;
} else if (message_pos < (MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH - 1)) {
// Stores the Byte in the message position
message[message_pos] = inByte;
//increments message position
message_pos++;
} else if (message_pos == (MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH - 1)) {
// Prints the Message if different from previous
// Excudes the internal use byte in position 7 or check sum.
if (message[1] != prev_message[1] or message[2] != prev_message[2] or message[3] != prev_message[3] or message[4] != prev_message[4] or message[5] != prev_message[5] or message[6] != prev_message[6] or message[8] != prev_message[8]) {
// Sets New Data to True
new_data = true;
Serial.print("The message in HEX is: ");
for (int i = 0; i < MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH; i++) {
Serial.print(message[i], HEX);
Serial.print(",");
}
Serial.print('\n');
/*
Serial.print(message[5],BIN);
Serial.println("");
*/
// Assigns values from message to packet
packet.Green_Light = bitRead(message[5], 3);
packet.Red_Light = bitRead(message[5], 2);
packet.White_Green_Light = bitRead(message[5], 1);
packet.White_Red_Light = bitRead(message[5], 0);
packet.Yellow_Green_Light = bitRead(message[5], 4);
packet.Yellow_Red_Light = bitRead(message[5], 5);
// Stuff not needed for repeaters
packet.Yellow_Card_Green = bitRead(message[8], 2);
packet.Yellow_Card_Red = bitRead(message[8], 3);
packet.Red_Card_Green = bitRead(message[8], 0);
packet.Red_Card_Red = bitRead(message[8], 1);
packet.Priority_Right = bitRead(message[6], 2);
packet.Priority_Left = bitRead(message[6], 3);
// Stores the Score and Time
packet.Right_Score = hex_string_to_int(message[1]);
packet.Left_Score = hex_string_to_int(message[2]);
packet.Seconds_Remaining = hex_string_to_int(message[3]);
packet.Minutes_Remaining = hex_string_to_int(message[4]);
// Sets Previous Message to Current Message
for (int i = 0; i < MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH; i++) {
prev_message[i] = message[i];
}
// Resets Message Position
message_pos = 0;
// Clears the Serial Buffer if more than Max Buffer Bytes bytes in the buffer
if (Serial.available() > MAX_SERIAL_BUFFER_BYTES) {
Serial.println("...............Clearing the Serial Buffer...............");
while (Serial.available() > 0) {
char inByte = Serial.read();
}
}
// Right fencer lights
if (packet.Green_Light == 1) {
fill_solid(right, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::Green); // On target right
Serial.println("FOTR ON TARGET");
} else if (packet.White_Green_Light == 1) {
fill_solid(right, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::White); // Off target right
Serial.println("FOTR OFF TARGET");
} else {
fill_solid(right, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::Black); // No light on right
Serial.println("FOTR NO LIGHT");
}
// Left fencer lights
if (packet.Red_Light == 1) {
fill_solid(left, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::Red);
Serial.println("FOTL ON TARGET");
} else if (packet.White_Red_Light == 1) {
fill_solid(left, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::White);
Serial.println("FOTL OFF TARGET");
} else {
fill_solid(left, NUM_LEDS, CRGB::Black);
Serial.println("FOTL NO LIGHT");
}
FastLED.show(); // Send the changes to the LEDs
}
} else {
Serial.println("Unexpected Message Position, Reseting to zero.");
message_pos = 0;
}
}
}