As explained in a previous post, for the EEGsynth we want to use a neopixel array that can be controlled wirelessly using the DMX512 protocol. I purchased a number of Adafruit neopixel rings with 12, 16 and 24 elements respectively. Each RGBW pixel contains a red, green, blue and white LED. For the 24-pixel ring that means that there are in total 4*24=96 LEDs of which the intensity can be set.
The ESP-8266 module is a versatile WiFi module that comes in many versions. During development I especially like the NodeMCU version, which mounts the ESP-12 module on a development board with USB connection, and the even smaller Wemos D1 mini board. The Wemos D1 mini is hardly more expensive on Ebay than the simpler bare-bone ESP-8266 modules.
The hardware connection is simple: I connected Vcc and GND directly to the Wemos D1 mini board, and connected pin D2 to the data-in of the first pixel. Although the Neopixels are specified for 5V, in my experience the Adafruit rings also work fine at 3.3V, both for power and for the serial control signal. Each LED can take up to 20 mA when fully bright, which means that all LEDs of the 24-pixel RGBW ring can take up to 24*4*20 = 1920 mA, or close to 2 A. However, not all LEDs will be at full intensity at the same time, and driving them with 3.3V rather than 5V further reduces the current. I encountered no issues powering them over the USB port of my MacBook.
For the EEGsynth we want to map a small number of control signals to aesthetically pleasing light effects. E.g. it can control the hue, the frequency with which the array flashes, or the speed with which a bright bar rotates along the ring.
I implemented the firmware as an Arduino sketch that combines a number of features. It incorporates ConfigManager for the OTA (over-the-air) configuration of the WiFi network to which it should connect. Once connected to the local wifi network, he ConfigManager also allows updating specific settings in EEPROM over a POST call to a specific URL. Settings include the number of pixels of the attached Neopixel array, whether they are RGB or RGBW, and most importantly: the mode with which the controller maps the control signals onto the LED behaviour.
The firmware listens to the Artnet protocol messages that it receives as UDP packets. The Artnet packets can be sent by the EEGsynth outputartnet module, but also by general purpose Artnet software, such as JV Lightning DmxControl, LightKey or QLC+.
The first mode that I implemented allows for full control of all LEDs. It maps the DMX512 channels like this
mode 0: individual pixel control
channel 1 = pixel 1 red
channel 2 = pixel 1 green
channel 3 = pixel 1 blue
channel 4 = pixel 1 white
channel 5 = pixel 2 red
etc.
The simplest overall uniform color mode is implemented like this:
mode 1: single uniform color
channel 1 = red
channel 2 = green
channel 3 = blue
channel 4 = white
channel 5 = intensity
This allows 3 channels (for RGB) or 4 channels (for RGBW) to control the color, and one channel to control the intensity. The intensity channel is in principle redundant, but makes the control much easier.
I implemented many more modes, including blinking/flashing of one or two colors, segments that can be moved over the ring (of which the color and position can be controlled), segments that automatically move around the ring (of which the color and speed can be controlled). The modes are all documented in code and in the README document included with the Arduino sketch in my Github repository.
The video below demonstrates one of the modes, controlled by the launchcontrolXL module of the EEGsynth. This shows the ESP-8266 Artnet neopixel module connected both to a 24-pixel Neopixel ring, and to a 144-pixel LED strip. I will document the hardware details of the LED strip in a follow up post.
On my YouTube channel you can find more examples, including a special Christmas tree mode 😉
This is great..
Were is the actually code for the project. I’m just getting used to github…… Are there any libraries I need?
The specific code is included in a larger repository with Arduino code which is here, where the specific code is here. There are indeed a number of libraries that you need, which you can install using the “manage libraries” option in the Arduino IDE. Look at the includes at the top of the sketch (i.e. in the *.ino file). You also need to install the ESP-8266 board using the “additional boards manager” in the Arduino preferences.
Feeling kind of stupid here. I got the code loaded, even connected to my wifi. However when I attempted to CURL the config. curl -X PUT -d ‘{“universe”:1,”offset”:0,”pixels”:13,”leds”:3,”white”:0,”brightness”:100,”hsv”:0,”mode”:1,”speed”:8,”position”:1,”reverse”:0}’ 192.168.1.254/json
I got an error in the serial monitor. I re-flashed the Wemo and now I get
loadConfig
Failed to open config file
*WM:
*WM: AutoConnect
*WM: Connecting as wifi client…
*WM: Using last saved values, should be faster
I am unable to return to AP mode, no longer see the Wemo on the network and cannot update it on the fly. When I reflashed I included the data folder in the upload, missed that the first time. What am I missing?
PS Thank you for this awesome code! It is EXACTLY what I was looking for!
If you have a Neopixel LED strip attached and if it were decently configured, the color of the first LED indicates the status (connecting, connected, http-access). But more robust is to look in the serial monitor. After the “*WM” messages there should be more printed in the monitor (such as the IP address). Please have a look at that. If it does not get further than the “Using last saved values” message, something is wrong. I recommend you refresh the firmware and the SPIFSS data.
loadConfig
Failed to open config file
*WM:
*WM: AutoConnect
*WM: Connecting as wifi client…
*WM: Using last saved values, should be faster
*WM: Connection result:
*WM: 3
*WM: IP Address:
*WM: 192.168.1.13
connected
setup done
But I cannot get to the config page…I uploaded data to spiffs what I done wrong ??
there will be something appearing on screen when you connect to http://192.168.1.13. If it is “cannot connect” then there is something wrong with your network settings. If it is “file not found” then there is something wrong with the SPIFFS upload.
Hi Robert, you did a nice job which will helped me to start with these types of LED stripes.
I have modified your code to use E1.31 re sACN i/o ArtNet as this is the protocol I used in my other projects.
In addition I am using APA102 i/o NeoPixel.
As I am not able to add this to your project on GitHub, I have created project in my account. If you would like to intergate this into your project , I will delete this: https://github.com/ThomasH-W/esp8266_e131_DotStar
Other than that I had to create the file config.json in the data directory to overcome “file not found” issue.
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the feedback, glad you like it! I don’t think it is likely that I will soon integrate the changes you made for E1.31 and for APA102. Both would require some studying and testing. I appreciate that you are sharing your version of the code on github, please keep it there. I do hope that in the future I’ll find the time and opportunity to look at it in detail.
Best regards, Robert
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Hi Robert!
Great work, this exactly what i need.
But i am a totally newbee with esp8266 and not able to compile your code. It always ends with exit code 1.
Can you please tell me the versions of the libraries you used?
best regards
Horst
Thanks for the compliments. I am using the latest versions of all libraries, which I install and regularly update using “Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries”. Specifically, I am using
Using library ESP8266WiFi at version 1.0 in folder: /Users/roboos/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.4.2/libraries/ESP8266WiFiUsing library ESP8266WebServer at version 1.0 in folder: /Users/roboos/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.4.2/libraries/ESP8266WebServer
Using library ESP8266mDNS in folder: /Users/roboos/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.4.2/libraries/ESP8266mDNS (legacy)
Using library WiFiManager at version 0.14 in folder: /Users/roboos/Documents/Arduino/libraries/WiFiManager
Using library DNSServer at version 1.1.0 in folder: /Users/roboos/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.4.2/libraries/DNSServer
Using library ArtnetWifi at version 1.1.0 in folder: /Users/roboos/Documents/Arduino/libraries/ArtnetWifi
Using library Adafruit_NeoPixel at version 1.1.7 in folder: /Users/roboos/Documents/Arduino/libraries/Adafruit_NeoPixel
Using library ArduinoJson at version 5.13.2 in folder: /Users/roboos/Documents/Arduino/libraries/ArduinoJson
Oh, there is one library that is not the latest: for ArduinoJson I am using 5.13.2, whereas the latest version is 6.7.0-beta. I tried the 6.x branch once for another project, but had problems and reverted. According to the ArduinoJson documentation here, it is also recommended to use the 5.x version over the 6.x-beta version.
This is fantastic, Robert. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve had good luck with most of it, but I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind! I will admit that I’m not an expert programmer, so I hope this isn’t too basic. I’m a theatrical lighting designer, running 16 pixels of RGB on a WeMos D1 Mini Clone, and sometimes it works beautifully.
For some reason I am unable to update over the air. When I get to the Change Settings page, I put in new information and then click save, but receive an error that the unit sent no data back. If I go to the [IP address]/json, I see that the updates have not happened and that it’s still running the settings I loaded in on the initial firmware flash. Do you have any thoughts as to why this could be?
Secondly, at times the pixels appear choppy as though it’s having trouble processing the information. It doesn’t seem to be related to distance from the router. Do you have any thoughts as to changes I could make to help speed it up?
And finally, what does the Offset setting do in the code? I thought it might start the addressing at universe 1 address 101 when I put 100 in there, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Thanks again, you’ve created something fantastic here.
Hi Peter, thanks for the feedback!
With “update over the air” you mean “change settings” (2nd option) or “update firmware” (last option)? The code underneath “update firmware” is copied from somewhere, but it never reliably worked for me. That still needs to be debugged. The “change settings” however should work… I cannot check it myself right now, but perhaps you can give more details.
The choppy behavior of the pixels surprises me; I used it with LED strips of up to 300 pixels and that runs smooth, i.e., the moving and blinking patterns are smooth. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxAIAKqi04. I could imagine that a generally busy WiFi environment taxes the ESP chip, which constantly has to switch between the Arduino code that drives the neopixels and the wifi handling. Or is it that the updates you send for mode 0 (individual pixel control) are not immediately processed? I don’t have much experience with that, but could give it a try with a 12 pixel LED ring.
Offset (minus one) should behave as you describe, i.e., the first 99 items of the received DMX packet should be ignored so that DMX packet value 100 ends up on pixel 1. But I see on line https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/blob/080945494c4f9903c10332dbad0eda696e98cef7/esp8266_artnet_neopixel/esp8266_artnet_neopixel.ino#L73 that it is ignored. I’ll file this as issue, you can follow it at https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/issues/13.
best regards,
Robert
Hi Robert,
First of all, this project is awesome! Thankyou for sharing, I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time and only just happened across this by chance.
I’m currently experiencing an issue when trying to change settings, similar to what another user recently described. When I make changes on the ‘change settings’ page, and hit save, it takes me to a blank page with ‘ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE’
In serial monitor I can see the update trying to push through, but I receive an error of file not found.
This is the log I’m getting from serial monitor.
handleJSON
04:28:56.488 -> HTTP Request
04:28:56.488 ->
04:28:56.488 -> URI: /json
04:28:56.488 -> Method: POST
04:28:56.488 -> Arguments: 12
04:28:56.488 -> universe: 1
04:28:56.488 -> offset: 0
04:28:56.488 -> pixels: 16
04:28:56.488 -> leds: 4
04:28:56.488 -> white: 0
04:28:56.488 -> brightness: 255
04:28:56.488 -> hsv: 0
04:28:56.488 -> mode: 1
04:28:56.488 -> reverse: 0
04:28:56.488 -> speed: 8
04:28:56.488 -> split: 1
04:28:56.488 -> plain: universe=1&offset=0&pixels=16&leds=4&white=0&brightness=255&hsv=0&mode=1&reverse=0&speed=8&split=1
04:28:56.488 ->
04:28:56.488 -> handleStaticFile
04:28:56.562 -> File Not Found
If possible are you able to assist?
Looking at https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/tree/master/esp8266_artnet_neopixel/data it seems that the data directory (which goes on the SPIFFS file system) does not contain a config.json file. Could you add it, rewrite the SPIFFS, and try again?
Hello Robert,
And thanks a lot for this nice piece of software!!
I am really happy with it, but there is a small issue that I cannot seem to overcome.
Basically, as some other guys around, I cannot manage to update the settings in the .json file unless I directly load them from the arduino ide.
There are a couple of things that sound strange to me, the most relevant is probably the fact the the “position” attribute is always shown in /json with no value, a question mark is shown instead. By looking around in the code I see sometimes “position” is called and some others “split” is used, but I cannot by myself tell if this is causing the issue.
What is even more strange is that the file is properly red at startup (even if with the original parameters) and that looking at the com port, when the value is sent to the esp8266, the command line reports the new settings instead. So basically it appears there is no way to overwrite the original file.
By checking here and there I found that in one of the 3.js files a part of the code is commented out, I uncommented it but still no changes since the old file is used.
Of course I cannot exclude to be using the wrong arduino json library, but I tried 4 or 5 differ t versions. Do you think you may check which one you were using at the time, so that we have a consistent version?
I am sorry if this request is a bit confused but it reflects my state of mind today 🙂
Thanks a lot in advance!
Hi Gianluca,
These are confusing times, so don’t worry 😉
I recall the “position” parameter at a certain moment in time being renamed in “split”. It allows splitting a long (say 300 pixel, 5 m) strip into separate pieces that all behave the same. Looking at the code, however, I don’t see where it might be going wrong.
Can you head over to https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/tree/master/esp8266_artnet_neopixel and point out in the code (i.e., as an issue, with the line numbers) where you think that “position” might be used incorrectly? I also don’t see it in the json or the config struct. Might it be that you have an older version of the code?
Split should be a small integer number (say 1, 2, 3) and the variable “position” as it is now used in the code is only in https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/blob/master/esp8266_artnet_neopixel/neopixel_mode.cpp and reflects the controllable feature, e.g. the position of the segment that moves back and forth, like https://youtu.be/oNyXYPhnUIs?t=10.
Robert,
Thanks a lot for the swift reply!
I probably didn’t explain myself correctly and I hope you didn’t spent too much time (or time at all) checking that… I couldn’t find anything specific but having noticed that I thought it may play a role in my problem 🙁
The strange this is that it is showing a ? even if I upload the config file directly from the ide, and also the fact it reads correctly but fails to write made me think it could deal with it.
I know this is now a fairly old piece of code, but if you could think about anything that may cause a successful reading but failed writing it would be great…
Funnily enough, months ago I managed to write a firmware myself that reads correctly from eeprom but lags with 100+ leds, now I am experiencing the opposite problem
By the way, the part which is commented out is at line 24 of setting.js
Yes, that part on https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/blob/4198d29ec6704811150cc132255c8378f7dde8fe/esp8266_artnet_neopixel/data/settings.js#L24 is commented out on purpose. The updateForm function worked better for me than the postForm function.
Hi Gianluca,
I checked with an old esp8266 with a 24 neopixel ring attached that I had not used for some time.
Initially it was slow to respond on the web interface, but using https://lightning-dmxcontrol.com the LED control worked as expected. The web interface on http://192.168.2.197/json returned the following:
{"universe":1,"offset":0,"pixels":24,"leds":4,"white":0,"brightness":255,"hsv":1,"mode":5,"reverse":0,"speed":8,"position":1,"version":"Jan 15 2017 / 17:04:26","uptime":416,"packets":859,"fps":99.00}Note that this includes the “position” parameter, and also note that the firmware was compiled and flashed in Jan 2017. Subsequently I compiled and wrote the latest version of the firmware, and also did “ESP8266 sketch data upload” to ensure that the html and javascript files were up to date. After that http://192.168.2.197/json returned the following:
{"universe":1,"offset":0,"pixels":24,"leds":4,"white":0,"brightness":255,"hsv":0,"mode":1,"reverse":0,"speed":8,"split":1,"version":"Apr 8 2020 / 21:06:04","uptime":237,"packets":530,"fps":89}Note that it now has “split” instead of “position”. Also, the web interface was much more responsive, and (as expected) the LED control was still working.
So if you see “position” in the web interface, you must have an old version of the firmware and/or data on your device.
Dear Robert,
thanks again for taking the time to check this!
I will thoroughly look into this.
I appreciate your help, if there is a way to virtually offer you a beer or similar just let me know! You have my mail address
I ame really sorry for all this subsequent comments…
ot of curiosity, were you able to change the parameters via webserver? Like universe 2 instead of 1
🍺🍻😁
Yes. I did not try changing the universe, but did change the “mode” in the web interface; that worked fine.
Again I wonder whether you have the latest firmware: one of the changes that I made to the code had to do with sending large files over http, which initially caused the esp8266 sometimes to reboot due to a memory overrun. That was around here https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/commit/70d6ea2ce7f6e968469a3f5dc71ff2dee14f98ba and https://github.com/robertoostenveld/arduino/commit/6e4ae51bfb386610cdc20446111cf9918ebc42e7. This had to do with getting the javascript libraries either from the esp8266 or from a CDN, and behaved differently if you were on a private wifi network not connected to the internet (as the CDN would not work in that case). Now it always serves the local file (see e.g. the settings.html), since http transmission of large files is fixed.
Hello. i am wondering if i can make it battery powered with 9 pixels and make the battery to last about 7hours?
and is it possible to control the pixels directly from the esp12?
Sure, that will work if you take a sufficiently large battery. Whether it is practical I don’t know. Driving the pixels directly from an ESP12 is not a problem.
I have not computed the power that it would take, but if you have all 9 pixels RGB all at the full intensity, it would draw about 9*3*20=540 mA. You should multiply that with the expected duty cycle, e.g. if you only expect one color to be on at any given time (rather than all three RGB simultaneous), the current would be only one third. And if the LEDs would blink (e.g. 50% on, 50% off), it might even be half of that. So perhaps 150 mA is more realistic.
Batteries are rated in mAh, i.e. milliamperes times hours. A LiPo battery has a voltage that is high enough, and a battery like the 18650 can pack 2000 mAh or more: it delivers 2000 mA for one hour, or 500 mA for 4 hours, or 150 mA for 13 hours.
I think that https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide might have some useful considerations on this. Or see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeuOuhKDdnU or other examples of mounting neopixels under skateboards. I also made a skateboard like that (sorry, not documented on my website); it has 60 pixels powered by two 18650 batteries and lasts slightly less than an hour.
Hi Robert,
this is a great piece of software. I uploaded your code to a NodeMCU via the Arduino IDE, i could connect to the ARTNET network and change the network preferences. I can now access it via my own WiFi-network and the LEDs react to Artnet Input! But I can’t change any of the settings… Not via terminal and not via the web interface, because only the page 192.168.178.141/json is available. Every other page takes a too long time to load and the browser gives up on it…. Any idea on what is going on?
Thanks in advance!
Grote groet!
Hi Hendrik,
You are correct that you cannot change any of the parameters via the (serial) terminal: the sketch only uses that for debug output, not for receiving any input. If only the network settings and the json are available through the web interface, I wonder whether you have uploaded the content of the “data” directory to the SPIFFS file system on the EEProm.
best,
Robert