BrickPixel Lighting System Category

Back to the workbench

Well, I'm back to working on my NaMaLiCS [National Mall Light Control System] after letting it sit on the back burner for quite a while. The system is based on the Brickstuff Arduino shield…

Testing the new SmartPixel boards

This is my tested setup for testing the two SmartPixel boards I have: This test was to see 1) the range of the 12C communications used to send control data to the boards 2) what changes were needed…

What a difference a year makes!!

I'm changing my old NaMaLiCS code over from using the Brickstuff Arduino shield and Adafruit NeoPixel code to a new custom SmartPixel board. These test boards are directly accessible from the Arduino.…

Do / Don't Do

Last night's lesson: you can't just decide to reverse the placement of the power source after the circuit has been wired.

Beware of the VERY DEEP rabbit hole called BrickPixels!

Lub-dub

How to translate Arduino demos into BrickPixel demos

When looking for examples of lighting control using the Arduino, you will usually find code that uses the on-board LED as the light. The control logic in the code is what's needed,…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 8, H_Flicker_OnOff

YAY! This is the last of the NaMaLiCS tutorials. Now that the core control of the system is working, loop(), and there is a template for pixel effects, cranking this out was easy.…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 8, G_Fade_OnOff

Well...it's been an interesting week of development for NaMaLiCS. When I added the fade effects, the wheels fell off and I've had to rethink, redesign and recode core parts of the program.…

NaMaLiCS, Getting ahead of myself

But...I couldn't resist. The video is a little small, but if you look closely you can see the light animation occurring across two sections connected by the BrickPixel magnetic connector.…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 7, F_Toggle_OnOff

The full code for this lesson [A_NaMaLiCS_WorkingCode_01.ino] is attached as a zip file. This time we're adding the toggle effect. It is similar to the blink effect in that a pixel's brightness is…

NaMaLiCS Chaser Lights

Bwahahaha! The NaMaLiCS program I posted in Tutorial Supplement 3 CAN!! do chaser lights, unlike what I thought when I wrote Tutorial Part 6, E_BLINK. Ya just have to get the numbers right. See...…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Supplement 3, a working version for blinking lights

Since I've been discussing the code by inserting bits of tutorial between code snippets, it might be a little difficult to tell what is actually in the program.…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 6, E_BLINK

The Prologue: If you've made it this far in the tutorial series…CONGRATULATIONS!! and…I apologize. The thought struck me today that the audience I've been writing for is…me…or at least folks like me.…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Supplement 2, pixelState (or...are we there yet?)

This is an updated version of the B_GLOBALS tab. Sorry, no pictures or video this discussion, just dry text. // = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = // NOTE:…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 5, D_LOOP

This the control center for the NaMaLiCS program. There are two sections in the loop. The first controls how the lights initially turn on (toggle, fade or flicker) and the second controls what…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Supplement 1, Magnetic Connectors

When switching from programming the BrickPixel 9-LED testbed to verifying the program with the larger National Mall testbed, I have to swap what the BrickPixel shield is connected to.…

I've failed utterly, but it still looks great.

Trying to program the light control system for the National Mall using the BrickPixel Shield on an Arduino. Would place the video here, but don't have a YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia account,…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 4, C_SETUP

All Arduino progams have two functions that MUST be included, setup() and loop(). setup() is executed once at the startup of the program. loop() is executed next and runs until you load another…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 3, B_GLOBALS

I'm going to go through the NaMaLiCS program tab by tab. That means some information introduced up front won't be useful and perhaps not even understandable right away.…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 2, the Arduino IDE

I am using the IDE that Arduino provides for programming it's products. I normally use another code editor, but because the Arduino IDE is used to compile the code and send it to the Arduino itself,…

NaMaLiCS Tutorial Part 1, the lighting effects testbed

NaMaLiCS is the National Mall Light Control System. Using the BrickPixel system it will, in it's initial phase, control approximately 1,200 lights...some individually, some in banks of lights.…

Five different light effects driven by the BrickPixel Arduino Shield

Have just posted a new video on my Flickr site [ https://flic.kr/p/2mzfybx ] showing mutiple different light effects running simultaneously off the BrickPixel Arduino shield and a BrickPixel 9-LED…

Then and now (May 2021 vs. Sept. 2021)

See explanation and videos at: https://flic.kr/p/2mvxbuh

Looking for others using the Arduino BrickPixel shield

I'm just starting into a very large project using an Arduino controlled BrickPixel system. Am looking for some sort of community of users that I might be able to ask questions of,…