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Official FRC Documentation powered by Read the Docs
https://docs.wpilib.org
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Addressable LED Cleanup #2322

Open scarmain opened 1 year ago

scarmain commented 1 year ago

I am suggesting to add a note at the top of the section saying there is a limit of one LED strip on the robot using the PWM port method of controlling them. We tried hooking up 2 strips to the Rio, and you get a HAL allocation error if you try to allocate more than one AddressableLed class. (unless this is a core WpiLib issue)

Some suggestions could be added like stringing all the LEDs in series, and making addressable led buffers for the different segments (although you have to reconstruct the full string before you send it), or if you have 2 segments you want identical, you can use a PWM Y cable and send the same command to both strips. (we actually have 2 sets of y cables, one for front/rear side of the arms, and one Y for left vs right side.) Also maybe a comment about the W2812B LEDs want 5V, but the Rio PWM/Servo ports provide 6V. They will function (in our testing), but probably not good for the life of the LEDS.

Maybe also post a link to the AdaFruit uber guide for powering them and/or best practices to maybe help teams. (https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide/powering-neopixels)

Overall, the section was written really well and the examples got a small test strip of LEDs running really quickly!

sciencewhiz commented 1 year ago

2347 addresses the single strip limitation. There should be a HW article like there are for other items for the wiring and power portions to fully address this issue.

jasondaming commented 2 months ago

I think the two things to do here would be: