• Hi there !

    I'm currently helping a friend building an animated "mask" from the LoL game, as seen on the following picture:

    We plan to have a total of 8 different "mouths", and the idea is to use a set of daisy-chained leds positioned within different "cavities" to represent each desired "leds combo": by turning on or off leds in different "cavities", we display the mouth n ( more or less like a "segment display", but using LEDs )

    The goal is to be able to start scheduled transitions betweens mouths at the press of the start button

    Now, onto the needy greedy:

    POC BOM:

    • currently using an Original Espruino board as controller
    • 2 x tactile switches to act as 'start' & 'reset' buttons
    • a PowerBoost 500C to boost [3.7V .. 4.2V] to 5V ( to power the LEDs & the Espruino board )
    • a 18650 12000mAh Li-Ion battery
    • APA102 ( or is it APA102C or another clone ? ) LEDS strip ( 25 of them )

    The charger/booster may be replaced by the 1000C version ( allowing up to 2A, in contrary to the 500C which is said to provide 1A from 3.7V batteries - although I'm driving 16 LEDs while testing since it shall draw max (60mA/led)*16= 960mA )

    It seems I'm getting somewhere in driving the LEDs thanks to this posts:

    Thing is, I'm now sure these HAVE to be driven at 5V ( else I got erratic colors powering 1, 3 or 16 of those through the 'Bat' pin on the original Espruino board) so powering those from 3.7V battery directly is a no-go, but I'm unsure of the best setup to control them: the SPI seems to be 'somewhat glitchy', and I'm guessing sure this comes from the pin config and not the spi.write calls themselves.

    • I tried with a level shifter, no success
    • I tried with 'af_opendrain' & 1.5k pullup resistors to 5v, no success
    • I tried with directly wiring Espruino pin ( B3 sck & B5 mosi ), success ONLY with software SPI

    I had some relative success driving 16 LEDs ( powered from BoostCharger 5V - actually 4.87V ) directly wired to B3 & B5, but in my tests, 'setInterval' wasn't 'as precise' as in my earlier test sketch ( in which I was using an OLED screen to display the mouth index & the timeout before a mouth update ). As the goal is to have 'somewhat precise' schedule for mouth updates, I think I have some things to pack right for this goal to be met ..

    So here goes the questions:

    • 1: IYO, what 'd be the best way to wire to those Sck & Data pins ?
    • 2: any way to get hardware SPI working to increase the refresh rate & lessen cpu usage ?
    • 3: would 'compiled' code helps in getting more precise & faster 'scheduled updates' ?
    • 4: am I driving these correctly at all ? ( or what may the 'spi behavior'* come from ? )

    *I find it quite weird that software spin kinda works but hardware doesn't

    The debug code currently used to drive the LEDs is the following

    //  -- extracts from APA102 test code --
    var spi = undefined;
    // ...
    spi = new SPI();
    spi.setup({miso:B4, mosi:B5, sck:B3, mode:1,order:"msb", baud: 4000000}); // seems ok for software spi
    // ...
    // driving 3 LEDS
    // syntax
    //spi.write(0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,0,255,0, 0xe0+31,0,0,255, 0xFF ); // 1st R 2nd B 3rd G
    // ..
    var myArr = [ 
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,0,10,0, 0xFF]),
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xFF]),
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,0,0,255, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xFF]),
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,0,255, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xFF]),
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,255,255, 0xFF]),
      new Uint8Array([0,0,0,0, 0xe0+31,255,0,0, 0xe0+31,0,255,0, 0xe0+31,0,0,255, 0xFF])
    ];
    
    var idx = 0;
    var max = myArr.length;
    function loopOver(){
      //console.log(idx);
      if(idx+1 < max) idx++;
      else idx = 0;
      spi.write(myArr[idx]);
    }
    //var timr = setInterval(loopOver, 200);
    
    
About

Avatar for stephaneAG @stephaneAG started