Extend onboard NEO pixel

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jamesob
 
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Joined: Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:12 am

Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by jamesob »

Hi There

I have a Adafruit Grand Central M4 Express featuring the SAMD51 and it very useful to see the status of the onboard neopixel for uploading and general status however I current have it in a box so I was wondering ion there is a way to wire up addition neopixel and have react the same way as the onboard neopixel

Any help would be appreciated

James

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dastels
 
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Re: Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by dastels »

Not easily since that connection isn't exposed on any header. You could wire (carefully with a fine tipped iron) directly to the onboard NeoPixel. The data signal is unbuffered, so I'm not sure how it would work driving two Neopixels. Maybe use https://www.adafruit.com/product/1938 and https://www.adafruit.com/product/2176.

Another approach would to be using a lightpipe to visually attach the NeoPixel to a hole in the case. https://www.adafruit.com/product/4164 might work, but I haven't tried it. You would have to mount the end of the tube directly on the NeoPixel.

I'd probably go with soldering onto it.

Dave

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neradoc
 
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Re: Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by neradoc »

If you are talking about the bootloader and Circuitpython status, you could make a build using a different pin.
The bootloader in particular would be a one-off thing. (That would be the lines to change).

For CP you would have to keep up to date locally if you want to update, but it's a small change that a rebase can do with no effort (use a branch).
If you make the change on a fork on github, it should even compile it for you in the Actions.

If you try to solder to the neopixel, you'll have to solder in parallel to the Din pin, the code only drives one pixel, so the second one wouldn't light up.

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jamesob
 
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Re: Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by jamesob »

Sorry for late reply

Thanks for both you replies I will give them ago

Cheers

James

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westfw
 
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Re: Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by westfw »

I was thinking that for boards with one or more built-in neopixels, It might be nice to add a pad for the Dout signal of the last on-board neopixel, so that adding additional neopixels would be simply a matter of “extending” the existing string, instead of needing a separate object…
(I guess a lot of those boards don’t really have room for another pad. But still…)

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dastels
 
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Re: Extend onboard NEO pixel

Post by dastels »

westfw wrote:I was thinking that for boards with one or more built-in neopixels, It might be nice to add a pad for the Dout signal of the last on-board neopixel, so that adding additional neopixels would be simply a matter of “extending” the existing string, instead of needing a separate object…
(I guess a lot of those boards don’t really have room for another pad. But still…)
My thinking is that it would present yet another constraint on the board design (you'd want a through-hole pad which impacts both sides of the board. Whether that is worth it would, I suspect, largely depend on the demand for such a capability. From what I've seen, that demand is very small. If anyone really wants to, it's pretty easy to tack a wire onto the Dout of a full size NeoPixel (I've done this with CircuitPlaygrounds and the MacroPad RP2040 without problem), and even the smaller ones aren't too bad. DotStars are a different story.

Dave

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