Help with lightbox project

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zackboston
 
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Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

I am doing an edgelit LED strip lightbox project. We are connecting a strip of 6 RGB LEDs to a 3V trinket MO.

The problem is that I bought reels of black dotstar 60 LED/m strips instead of regular 6V RGB LED strips! of course they are NOT working with my regular tried and true fade color code --- I am now realizing that I need new library, etc.

I have some questions:

1) Can I use the 6 pixel dotstar strip with a 3V trinket MO or do I need 5V trinket MOs?

2) If I can use the dotstar strip, do I need to connect the clock CI pin to a pin on the trinket MO? It is not connected now and it does not work with the strandtest code for the dotstar LED strip.

Any help you can give me is GREATLY appreciated. . . eeek!!!

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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

p.s. I am doing this lightbox project with 18 youth in my Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program. . .

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by Franklin97355 »

You can either try the dotstars on 3v or use a level converter to boost the data to 5v. How are you planning to control the dotstars? Do you have a program you plan to use yet?

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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

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I uploaded the adafruit dotstar library and was going to use #include <Adafruit_DotStar.h>.

Then I have a tried and true code I made for fading LED colors in and out on the trinket mo.

NEW PROBLEM: When I opened the trinket mo this morning in Arduino on my 2 year old mac air, the port disappeared from Arduino Tools>Port. When I connected an UNO, the port appeared with normal uploading. But as soon as I plug the Trinket MO in, the port disappears! I checked all the settings. . .

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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

PORT PROBLEM. . . what I tried.
Yesterday, when my mac air recognized the port, I uploaded the blink sketch successfully on Trinket MO
(That means all the libraries are properly installed on the Arduino IDE)
Closed and reopened Arduino IDE 1.8.13
Rebooted mac air (M1, 2020)
Put Arduino Uno on dongle (usbc to usb) and it was recognized on the port; successfully uploaded blink
Put new microusb cord on the dongle (usbc to usb)
(Microusb cord IS data cord)

This has happened before, but it corrected itself when I put the Arduino Uno on and uploaded the blink sketch. . . why this work I don't know.

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zackboston
 
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:47 pm

Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

I uploaded the adafruit dotstar library and was going to use #include <Adafruit_DotStar.h>.

Then I have a tried and true code I made for fading LED colors in and out on the trinket mo.

NEW PROBLEM: When I opened the trinket mo this morning in Arduino on my 2 year old mac air, the port disappeared from Arduino Tools>Port. When I connected an UNO, the port appeared with normal uploading. But as soon as I plug the Trinket MO in, the port disappears! I checked all the settings. . .

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by Franklin97355 »


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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

Franklin,

Thank you so much for your suggestion.

I tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the port that the Trinket MO is on to appear in the Arduino Tools>Port selections. However, it seems that my Mac Air does "know" there is a Trinket MO. See attached screenshot from System Information.

What do I do next. This is happening on multiple Mac and Windows computers in my Fab Lab!
Attachments
Screen Shot 2022-07-23 at 6.40.06 AM.png
Screen Shot 2022-07-23 at 6.40.06 AM.png (285.58 KiB) Viewed 1494 times

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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

Screen Shot 2022-07-23 at 8.11.00 AM.png
Screen Shot 2022-07-23 at 8.11.00 AM.png (530.58 KiB) Viewed 1492 times
btw, I also have all the necessary boards installed

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zackboston
 
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Re: Help with lightbox project

Post by zackboston »

Just in case it is our wiring, here is the wiring plan we are using with a rocker switch and a Neopixel LED strip from Adafruit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14SYRBw ... sp=sharing

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