Vixen Generic Serial Output controls the Arduino!

[zparticle]

No offense to anybody here or any "arduino people" (I'm one of them), but I think this has to do with the skills/experience of the people coming in here attempting to do things with arduino. I have a feeling there are a lot of people that know nothing about programming, electronics, etc. that "heard a friend talking about an arduino" and try cobbling something together based on what they have. That would also explain the terrible terrible code floating around that doesn't have any kind of for loops just a bunch of manual reads into channel variables and individually coded writes to the output pins.

I do take offense to this.

If the lack of for loops is what you judge code by then you have a long way to go, lol. Yes, many people in DIY forums are learning, one or many aspects of their projects, THAT is the point of DIY. Instead of criticizing people and the way they do things, maybe you could actually try helping them. That would be nice.

Who gives a **** if a program isn't using a loop as long as the person using it can understand what it's doing.

[archades]

Got 6 mosfets on the board so far, tomorrow I'll add the other 10 and get the ground paths done. Seems to work so far.

[Gorak]

Thanks for the reply zparticle. I'll be the first to admit any code I post isn't very polished but there are reasons for that. I'm thankful for the helpful people here that have a good DIY spirit.

archades your progress is awesome!

I'm having a blast with my new Arduino! I took the Renard protocol, the lpd8806 RGB awesome strip, Vixen 3.0.3, and the Arduino Due and I'm controlling all the LED channels with just 2 output pins!! Who needs GE lights when these give you 32 or 52 RGBs per meter!? lol (I know nothing about the GE lights strips btw. I see them on various threads here) I'm putting it all together and will have some code in the proper Arduino forum by the end of the week. Tacos

[archades]

Thank-you. :D
It's a pain in the butt to do all the soldering but I am enjoying the learning process. Rushing to get it done before the new year, already missed xmas.
Gorak, is it possible to add a footer to your code for the TLC5940 so the lights turn off when sequence ends? I am completely clueless as to how to do it, I can't even see where the ~! is defined. My best guess is it's something to do with one of the numbers in the serial read lines being converted?

[Materdaddy]

Thank-you. :D
It's a pain in the butt to do all the soldering but I am enjoying the learning process. Rushing to get it done before the new year, already missed xmas.
Gorak, is it possible to add a footer to your code for the TLC5940 so the lights turn off when sequence ends? I am completely clueless as to how to do it, I can't even see where the ~! is defined. My best guess is it's something to do with one of the numbers in the serial read lines being converted?

The ~! is the part where uno/dos are read and compared to 126 and 33. If you look at an ascii table you'll see that those values are the characters zparticles mentions.

The footer in the code is basically to know you're done reading data from Vixen. It is so you know you're reading the right bytes at the right time, just like the header. Both the header and footer are sent for each event period.

"VIXEN_START", channel1, channel2, channel3, "VIXEN_END", "VIXEN_START", channel1, channel2, channel3, "VIXEN_END", etc.

A footer to turn all the lights off when a sequence ends is probably best done in the actual sequence. i.e. either ensure the last event period in your vixen sequence is blank, or check the "Reset controller at end of sequences" on the "Sequence Execution" page of Tools->Preferences in Vixen.

[archades]

Ahh figured it was some numerical value for text but wasn't sure which. I've tried the last frame blank in sequence but still leaves a channel on. Tried with both reset controller set to on n off, not sure why it's not working.

Got the board pretty much done, 16 channels, just need to add a few more ground jumpers to carry any extra current. After a few teething issues (drilling tracks to break them up....be careful of hairline joins left:P) it seems to work nicely. I'll be setting up the first board to control some Christmas lights (new years lights now, missed the deadline ) tomorrow night so hopefully it all goes well! I've attached a pic of the work so far, once finally setup and I know it works I can post the schematic and layout for EAGLE CAD if anyone wants.

[archades]

So I had the board ready, plugged it up but found out the tlc5940 is really sensitive to line noise, ended up blowing all 5 that I had before I could figure out wtf. Anyway I have swapped to the WS2803 and omg it just works, straight away, easy as hell, 2 wires to control, I have flicked fluoros on n off and there is no issue like the tlc5940 had. Which brings me to the next problem.

I have no idea how to get vixen talking to it, does anyone have code already that works or could point me in the right way so I can hopefully get it coded before monday night to at least have 2012 lights running. :P

I'll post up a new schematic tomorrow with the ws2803 pinout and probably tear up all the tlc wiring on this board n stick to the ws2803. I can't believe I've spent days with the TLC5940 having so many issues when this ws2803 just worked within 10 minutes, and is 18 channel to boot giving 6 rgb lines (I'll have to add 2 more mosfets to the board). Daisy chaining them is simple too, just did it in 2 minutes on the breadboard. If I can get vixen to control it I'll be over the moon!

[archades]

Update, ws2803 works fine using the code here http://doityourselfchristmas.com/for...Generic-Serial changing the settings to 56k baud rate and fixing the wsC2803 in the code. 18 channels pwm, just gotta modify the first board and if it works I'll make the second and post a schematic. So far I'm loving this lil chip! None have burned up!

[alhortz]

Hi
Have picked up heaps from here, thanks everyone, and had a fairly simple 10 channel show going this year, used a homebrew board with opto isolators (just for the safety of my UNO) controlling NPN transistors, switching LED strings. All I changed for different voltages was the current limiting resistor. Can post the circuit if anyone is interested.

Looking to expand out to 16 channels next year, so came back to grab the serial code that uses the A0-A5 pins on the arduino, but took the time to read all the posts, and noticed a common thread when others posted their problem code that changed sequence.
Not experienced at coding (if it was in BASIC I may have a better show) but it appears a lot are forgetting that the counting starts at zero, not one. So if you have 12 channels, they are 0 to 11, so it should count up to i<12 ?

On another topic, has anyone tried multiplexing/setting up an array using the digital outputs of the UNO using AND gates (such as a 4081)? Have one input connected to a PWM pin, and the other connected to an on/off digital pin. This would allow 36 channels using just 12 digital pins, and each gate output would be dimmable.
Only downside would be programming with vixen, if the first 6 channels were set up as the PWM output, then the next 6 off/on, you would need to remember to turn at least one channel on from each group to have any output.

[alhortz]

OK, something else for the brains trust to ponder. Picked up a screw terminal shield to make life easier this coming Christmas. Added LEDs to it today so I can play with a new sequence anywhere (even at work on nightshifts).
Used the 18 channel code modded by Phinch on page 5 and wrote a simple sequence, step each LED on and off, then a couple of fades, no music track, just to check my work and got weird results, no lights, multiple lights on, and when it came to dimming, a second light would come on dimly while the light that should have dimmed stayed bright.
Played with the code a bit, then thinking it may have had a bug I couldn't see, recoded the other code (assigning each output in a separate line) to add the extra channels with the same result.
Reverted back to my 12 channel code and that worked fine, so I started playing with the baud rate, dropped it back from 57600 to 38400 that I had used on the 12 channel and it worked almost perfectly. Changed the USB cable to a brand new one with no difference. After much experimenting, I found that 38400 was the sweet spot.
I said almost perfectly, when I loop the 1 minute sequence, timed at 1 second, or repeat the sequence @ 100mS, either A3 or A4 refuses to light every second or 3rd repeat. Only a minor problem, and it could be anywhere in the chain, but missing one string in a full show shouldn't even be noticeable (I hope)

edit - just found the error in the code, loaded the second version I modified by mistake, the array was still set to 12 from where I was sorting out the problem, and using 16 channels with 2 spare (I have a plan for them) in Vixen it was sending one of the blank ones, while I was expecting a used one