What board / shield to use, small profile bluetooth

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hi,

I was hoping some one could point me in the right direction for this.

I want to create a set of RGB led strips that have some limited local intelligence but are centrally controlled via a raspberry pi.

The idea is each strip will have a sensor attached, such as 3 light gates, and if gate one gets tripped the led goes green, if its gate 2 they change to blue and gate 3 they change to red.

So very simple input / out put logic.

I then want to like each to a blue tooth receiver so I can sit a raspberry pi in the middle that can talk to all the strips and update there logic on the fly

So for example if strip 1's gate 1 is tripped, then tell strip 2 to reset and strip 3 to flash purple.

Because I want to have 5 strips and they will be battery powered I want a small low powered device and to be able to talk to them via bluetooth from the Raspberry.

I have not used arduino and I know I could jump in with a Uno, but can any one suggest a small board that can drive common LED strips (Which i understand are using a single data and clock pin) and either have onboard or can be linked to a bluetooth shield?

Thank you

aaron

2

I don't know anything about Raspberry Pi, or why you would want to use one, but bluetooth may not be such a good choice, and you may be better off with an NRF24 network. NRF come in the same postage stamp size, for about the same price, and have similar performance.

3

HI,

Sorry what I am looking for is some thing to control these LED strips

And then what ever is used to control them I want to connect mutiply strips back to a raspberry Pi (blue tooth , NRF, 2.4GHz radio or even wired might be used for this as the distances between led strips might be any thing from a few feet to 50+ meters.

but the first step i need i a board to drive the LED strip that has input and output.

input and output to accept commands from the central management via the NFR/Bluetooth etc and to send data back to it. and output to drive the LED strip.

A raspberry pi would work but it way over kill, and ardrino would suit it better but its a large board, i was wondering what is the smallest board that is Ardunio compatible as I would like to learn arduino wiht all its following.

4

I think i figured it out, I need the pro mini.

5

Nick_Pyner:
I don't know anything about Raspberry Pi, or why you would want to use one, but bluetooth may not be such a good choice, and you may be better off with an NRF24 network. NRF come in the same postage stamp size, for about the same price, and have similar performance.

Hi

what module is the NRF? I cant find it by searching this site so please can you point me in the right direction. I can find chip on line but if you know of a product that is supported on the ardunio libraries that would be really help full. Having looking in to it this might well be the best method looking forward.

Thank you

Aaron

6

You will find plenty of reference to the NRF24 in the networking section of this forum, and it is in common usage with Arduino. I raise this because it is more suitable for that - networking. It is about the same size as a Pro Mini and has very low power requirements. I believe it can work up to a kilometer if you have a high power version for the base station.

7

I have to say looking at it this does seem a good fit, I do want to use this with RC systems which also transmit on 2.4, but as this will be running at much loser power and I can select a none used channel I think this would be perfect thank you for the heads up!