Guess what- the sparkle lights came in this week! I tested the 5 volt LED strip with both the ESP8266 chip and the hard-coded Arduino Uno. The 5 volt strip lit up extremely well. I didn’t see any signs of voltage drop in the 60 light strip. Hopefully that means I can use the light strips instead of the strands for this project. The strips come with an adhesive backing, and as such, they’re far easier to install in any given location.
However, this week wasn’t perfect. I tried to set up the WiFi connection with the ESP8266 chip and it didn’t work. In fact, I tried on two different days, and I even tried to use the Apogee WiFi system instead of the UMW one. I think that it’s going to be impossible to set up something reliable on UMW WiFi. Too many people log on and off of the system in the HCC every day.
Here’s a helpful hint if you’re using a WiFi connectable chip: check the IP address on the computer you’re controlling it from and see if the first two sections match. That means you’re on the same network as your chip and you’re able to send data to it! For some versions of the IP address, you might need to check the first three sections. The last section is always specific to your device. It’s like a name for your computer (or chip) that the network can reference!
I’ve attached yet another set of code, this one for a 60 light strand. I hope you have fun trying this out, because it’s my favorite code yet! It’s called the Rainbow Comet!
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#ifdef __AVR__
#include <avr/power.h>
#endif
#define PIN 5
#define NUMPIXELS 60
Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels(NUMPIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
#define DELAYVAL 30
void setup() {
#if defined(__AVR_ATtiny85__) && (F_CPU == 16000000)
clock_prescale_set(clock_div_1);
#endif
pixels.begin();
}
void loop() {
for(int i=0; i<NUMPIXELS; i++) {
pixels.setPixelColor(i, pixels.Color(0, 0, 0));
pixels.show();
}
for(int i=0; i<NUMPIXELS; i++) {
pixels.setPixelColor(i, pixels.Color(255, 0, 0));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-1, pixels.Color(255, 62.5, 0));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-2, pixels.Color(255, 127.5, 0));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-3, pixels.Color(0, 255, 0));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-4, pixels.Color(0, 127.5, 255));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-5, pixels.Color(0, 0, 255));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-6, pixels.Color(255, 0, 255));
pixels.setPixelColor(i-7, pixels.Color(0, 0, 0));
pixels.show();
delay(DELAYVAL);
}
}