LED Lights for the Robot (what do you use??!?!)

[Kris Verdeyen]

We used this strand of individually addressable LED's from Adafruit last year:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/306

They have arduino code, which is what we used last year, which we interfaced to the cRio (clunkily) through a pair of digital outputs. This year, I took the Arduino library and adapted it to use the SPI.h interface in Wpilib, so we should be able to have the lights respond to a lot more robot, driver, and game actions, and the wiring will be simpler.

[Jon Stratis]

Another great place to get 12V LED's is automotive stores, or the automotive department at places like Walmart. 12V LED strips are used by many to add interior accent lighting to their cars (like under the dash), and are perfectly compatible with the FRC electrical system. They most often have adhesive backs, can be applied either straight or curved, and can be plugged directly into the 12V WAGO connectors on the PDB.

[Tom Line]

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlights-Blue...words=blue+led

Just make sure that whatever lighting strip you use meets the custom circuits guidelines and is on an appropriate circuit. For instance, the lights we use need to be cut so we don't draw too much power from the solenoid breakout.

[Night_Shade]

Sounds like a pretty cool idea. (:

[yara92]

we have Ring light (fc13-060)
any Idia who we cane conect, we try using from PD 20 A conecting with Power Converter CPR-360 (am-0899) .
any paper about that

[Tom Line]

To connect the ring light, you can lead it straight back to the power distribution board and one of the 20 amp slots. If you'd like to turn it on and off, you'll need to hook it to a spike (or a talon/victor/jag if you want variable control).

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by yara92

we have Ring light (fc13-060)
any Idia who we cane conect, we try using from PD 20 A conecting with Power Converter CPR-360 (am-0899) .
any paper about that

The Ring Light is a 12V device - it needs to be hooked up to one of the 12V outputs from the PDB - the red and black WAGO connectors - or to a spike if you want on/off control.

Unless you have two Power Converters on your robot, it should only be used with the radio - no other electrical loads can be connected to it, per R44. Using a second one connected to the normal 12V outputs and an appropriately sized breaker would be allowed as a custom circuit, if you needed the 5V output for something.

[Woolly]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlights-Blue...words=blue+led

Just make sure that whatever lighting strip you use meets the custom circuits guidelines and is on an appropriate circuit. For instance, the lights we use need to be cut so we don't draw too much power from the solenoid breakout.

"3528 Type SMD"
That's great for Up Next, but where can I get some 1806 Type SMD?

In all seriousness, I was looking at some RGB Lights with separate leads for R, B, and G like these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA0WP0M58573. We'd hook the separate leads up to a 3-way switch, and use green (a team color) for practice, and red or blue on the field based on what alliance we're on.

[Domtech]

We bought a Ton of lights from Greeled.
We made a huge group purchase from there of both RGB and addressable.

Here is the RGB we bought, at about $32 a 5m roll with glue cover waterproofing.

They sell the same addressable strip as Adafruit for something like $85 per 5m roll with no waterproofing. It was a breeze to program on arduino using Adafruit's library.


You have to email for current pricing and to order, and I think payment might have involved wiring money, but it sure was worth it.

I should have a pic of my desk up later which has the RGB lights on it.

[Garten Haeska]

Just out of curiosity, some RGB light strips come with a IR controller, would we use these or is it because it is IR, it would no be allowed during competition?

[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by Garten Haeska

Just out of curiosity, some RGB light strips come with a IR controller, would we use these or is it because it is IR, it would no be allowed during competition?

IR is fine, just no radio.

You may not want to be changing colors mid-match though

EDIT:

As a note on this please remember that you should ask for Brittney and let her know that Evan sent you, she will most likely give you a discount. Also all purchases have to be paid for via cash wire (chase charges a 45$ fee) or a western union money order. Also shipping is 3 day express air whether you like it or not.

please remember they prefers only big orders, for example when our team did it the order came out to over $2000 and $160 of that is was shipping. please email me if you have any questions. evan@evan-inc.com (mark your email as high importance)

they are amazing to work with and I am not trying to scare you away but please acknowledge that they make money off selling in bulk and thus they will not appreciate orders of 1 role for example.

New user, telling us to buy a bulk order with expensive shipping using only Western Union or Cash Wire?...... Tread carefully guys...

[Garten Haeska]

What about just having three switches on the robot, just for the 3 base colors, would that work, and does anyone have an example?

[ablatner]

We've been custom-making our ring lights for the past several years. In 2011, it seemed as if we were one of the only teams, and then in 2012 everyone had them. We just wire up 12 LED's on a circular cutout of perfboard. There are 3 series sets of 4 parallel ~3.5V LED's with appropriate resistors. We use white LED's, but you can use any color. The only restrictions are that it doesn't interfere with communications, other robots' vision, and other commonsense bad things.

[theawesome1730]

Our sister team 1987 had told me about controlling LEDs via solenoid breakout card. It works very easily for 7 color RGB strips according to them. I am not sure of the specifics, or even who to tell you to talk to. If I can get more information I'll post it.

[Becca334]

We use these
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/f...rips-and-bars/

And get blue/red/white.
The white we hook up to the PDB so it's always on, and it's in our chassis to illuminate it. The red/blue we put into any type of mechanism we have and they're both hooked up to spikes. We have a light switch that goes to a Digital I/O port that way programmers don't recompile code each match, we flip the light switch one way and its red when the robot is enabled - other way blue.

As an added bonus, turn both lights on for autonomous and since they're right next to one another, it turns it purple.

http://i.imgur.com/z9lww3N.jpg They look pretty snazzy and gives a different effect from all the other teams that mostly light up at the bottom.