Ive been messing around with the Arduino Collision sensor project and have everything working as ...

[G+_Tyler Pearson]

Ive been messing around with the Arduino Collision sensor project and have everything working as intended but I wanted to make a couple changes and have been unable to figure out how I would go about doing it properly. Im new to Arduino and programming so im not 100% sure what I can and cant do with the Fastled library and Arduino. Ive looked at the fastled wiki and documentation but cant seem to find any good info. I found a keyword file in the libraries folder but it doesn't have any explanation for what they do or how to manipulate them.

 

1. Is there any resources I can look at to explain the library and all the capabilities of it?

 

2. Can anyone help me head in the right direction towards making my leds light up like i want?

 

I currently have a strip of 40 leds in 5 sets of 8. ( I may increase it to 6 sets of 8 for a total of 48 leds) I would like to get the sets to light up all at the same time based on the range I am getting from the ultrasonic sensor.

 

So something like

 

Mapping the Ultrasonic sensor values to 20-120

 

If 100

If 80

If 60

If 40

If 20

If 0

 

I have been able to get them to change colors and do what i want except the leds light up individually based on the distance. Id rather have all 8 leds per strand light up if the ultrasonic sensor is reading anywhere in the range given. So if it reads 120 the first 8 light up green. Currently it will light up only 1 led green and increases as the range value decreases like in Padre's project.

 

Ive though about changing the wiring and making the led strips in parallel instead of series like i currently have but im not sure if that would work and I would have to re solder everything. (Not a big deal but this was my first soldering project and it was a pain to get the led strips soldered in series so i could make it display like i wanted.)

 

I think my issue is with the mapping of the ultrasonic sensor to the led strip. I was hoping I could just make a small change to the project code Padre used but it seems i may have scrap it all and write it in a different way. But I cant seem to find any information on how I would light specific leds on a strip. I usually end up with either nothing working or only 1 out of the 8 leds per strip lighting up.

Here is the code padre used for reference. Id post my edits but nothing worked and i really only was able to change the colors to green yellow red at 20% intervals.

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/cc27cc806a6d98f6b9aac8e26644977d

 

 

Here is my current setup to give a visual.

[G+_Branden Snyder]

I'm pretty new to Arduino programming. Other people are welcome to chime in!

 

My thougts are:

A.) Map the ultrasonic sensor to 0-5 to represent each row of led's. 0 means all rows are off which means

  int LightMap = map(RangeValue, 0, 120, 0, 5)

 

B.) Set the led's to light based on 0-5. Don't use the "for loop", instead use multiple "if" statements

  FastLED.clear();

  If LightMap >= 1, then led[0-7] = CRGB::Green

  If LightMap >= 2, then led[8-15] = CRGB::Green

  If LightMap >= 3, then led[16-23] = CRGB::Yellow

  etc, etc....

  FastLED.show()

 

 

P.S. this is meant as pseudo-code, not necessarily correct. For example, I have no idea if you can set multiple items at once using led[0-7]

[G+_Tyler Pearson]

ya i originally did multiple If statements and it worked but I figured there would be a way better way to do it.

 

This was one way I did it and it works but it seems like there should be a better way to do it

 

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/106c173adb81c31336a06d28e68cf324

 

i also did the multiple map route but it would only light up 1 led out of the led range i gave it.

[G+_Branden Snyder]

I think you could do less math. Think of the map() as determining which pre-defined state your lights SHOULD BE off(0), green(1), yellow(2), or red(3)

 

ie. "int LightMap = map(RangeValue, 10, 30, 3, 1);"

- the first 2 numbers (10 and 30) are the raw distance values from your sensor, 10cm and 30cm

- the 3rd number represents how many predefined states you want

- the 4th number is 1 and means that 30cm is the start of your green state, rather than (30 - 10) / 4 = 25cm

 

Toss in some error-correcting for safety

ie. "if(LightMap > 3) LightMap = 3;

      if(LightMap < 0) LightMap = 0;"

 

Then set each state and build off of the previous

ie. "int nextLed = 0;

      if(LightMap = 0) {

        FastLED.clear();

      }

      if(LightMap >= 1) {

        for(int x = 0; x < 8; x++){

          leds[nextLed] = CRGB::Green;

          ++nextLed;

      }

      if(LightMap >= 2) {

        for(int x = 0; x < 8; x++){

          leds[nextLed] = CRGB::Yellow;

          ++nextLed;

      }

      if(LightMap >= 3) {

        for(int x = 0; x < 8; x++){

          leds[nextLed] = CRGB::Red;

          ++nextLed;

      }

      FastLED.show();"