Python 3 UDP LED server for Raspberry Pi and WS2821 LED-strips

This repository implements an UDP server for the Raspberry Pi and WS2821 LED-strips. The client script also provides a music visualizer that uses sounddevice package and numpy to visualize audio data on the strip

Video in action (Song: Tiësto – BOOM)

Configuration

Hardware

You should be familiar with how to setup WS2821 LED-strip with your Pi, but in short

• Check the power consumption of the leds (mine are 0.3W when fully powered)
• Multiply that value with the amount of LEDs you're going to drive (0.3W * 120 = 36W)
• Make sure your power supply can handle it (the Pi wont be enough)
• The LED's take 5V, so the amperage that'll be going through at max power will be the consumption divided by 5 (36W / 5V = 7.2A)
• Make sure your wires will take the amperage, although this implementation probably won't drive the LEDs at max power anyways
• Connect the power supply
• Connect the Pi with the desired GPIO pin AND the ground pin!

Server

This would be run on the Raspberry Pi

• Copy the server.py script on your Raspberry.
• Install the server requirements defined in requirements.txt
• Modify the script to configure the amount of pixels, GPIO pin, and the port of the server
• Run as sudo (for GPIO access)

Client

This should be run on the device of which audio you want to visualize

• Install requirements defined in requirements.txt
• Modify the script to configure the amount of pixels, and the IP and port of the server
• Run it!

Tested on

• Raspberry Pi 2B (server)
• Arch Linux with Python 3 and PulseAudio (client)