Turning LEDs on with a spike while disabled

[Tungrus]

In the past we have been connecting LEDs (monochromatic, ring type) to PD directly and it stays on as long as power is turned on. Once dashboard is connected to FMS, the camera feed will be available.

[Ben Wolsieffer]

If you really need to be able to turn them on and off, you can make a simple circuit with a transistor and use a digital output to control it.

[Jpatterson1710]

You could use addressable LEDs, and control them with an Arduino. The RoboRIO can output information to different input pins in the Arduino, and use those combinations to set the information sent to the LEDs.
Example:
If no pins receive input, set LEDs to X (Thats Disabled)
If pin 1 receives input set LEDs to Y
If pin 2 receives input set LEDs to Z

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Jpatterson1710

You could use addressable LEDs, and control them with an Arduino. The RoboRIO can output information to different input pins in the Arduino, and use those combinations to set the information sent to the LEDs.
Example:
If no pins receive input, set LEDs to X (Thats Disabled)
If pin 1 receives input set LEDs to Y
If pin 2 receives input set LEDs to Z

You can use any number of output devices to control the lights as part of your custom circuits as long as you are not controlling motors, solenoids, or other actuators I think you are fine.

All you need is a way to get information out of the RoboRIO to the control device and some sort of circuit to turn the lights on/off.

There are tons of ways to get data into or out of the RoboRIO (I2C, UART, SPI, Ethernet, USB, ...) and there are an even larger array of choices for ways to turn the LEDs on/off

Dr. Joe J.

[Jpatterson1710]

Yeah, with SPI output on the RoboRIO, You might be able to eliminate any other circuit or device. I believe you can get LEDs that can be controlled by just SPI.