LEDs with Ethernet Microcontroller for FRC Competition Robot

[Phred7]

My team and I have been searching for sometime now trying to program our Andymark Ethernet Micro-controller for some leds we bought from them. Unfortunately we realy do not know where to start. We have bought the "bundle" (found here: http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-3010.htm) from Andymark. So far we are not sure how to program it to run our leds, what language to use (We have downloaded Arduino), what drivers to install, how to hook it up to our robot (if you do), power it and basically everything else. If you have anyhelp please let us know. Thank you.

[GeeTwo]

I'm not familiar with this specific kit, but looking on the AM page, I found this sentence (note the html link to GitHub for code):

Originally Posted by am3010 page

Default code for our last kit (am-2640) can be found at our GitHub page, we are currently working on updating this with the new chipset. You can use the code posted to do this yourself.

Edit:
I have looked at addressable LEDs before, and will be doing so again this week as a part of our air cannon lighting. The basic idea is that you send a signal down the line that's roughly equivalent to "Set LED #40 to be on/off/off [red]". Then, the first LED sends "turn on LED #39 to 'on/off/off [red]", and so on down the line until an LED finally gets the "turn on LED #0 to be on/off/off [red]", and it becomes red. As I recall, an arduino is up to sending these signals to a small number of LED strips in a reasonable time frame, if you are happy with fairly simple colors (basic 8, red green blue black white cyan magenta yellow or basic 27, which includes violet, orange, gray, and a few others as well as the basic 8). If you want to control a large number of strips (or a photo frame), or have a rich color palette, you will need a beefier processor or (even better) a graphics card designed to drive these sorts of LED arrays.

[Chris Mounts]

What you've bought is just an Arduino with a set of RGB LEDs. There is not much robot specific about this kit. I'd start by completing some simple testing without connecting it to your robot.

There is some decent documentation on the AndyMark GitHub page but I think the tutorial on Adafruit is better to get you going:

https://learn.adafruit.com/digital-led-strip

The wiring for these is pretty common. Basically you just need to get 5v power to the Arduino and LED strip. Note that the LED strip can not be powered from the Arduino it self.

Once you have it wired up there is sample code for this kit directly from AndyMark:

http://files.andymark.com/PDFs/am-3010+ExampleCode.pdf

Once you have it working off your robot and your comfortable with the code you could go ahead and just wire it into your robots 5v supply and leave it at that. If you want to have the LEDs react to something on your robot search the CD forums. It's very doable but it can get complicated.

Here is a simple setup I happen to be working on. The unplugged bit is a 5v 2amp wall plug.

[Phred7]

Thank you of course this was very helpful, but our LEDs only have one data/clock wire (not sure which, probably data) so we are not sure if we should attempt to modify the example or see what else we can find.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Phred7

Thank you of course this was very helpful, but our LEDs only have one data/clock wire (not sure which, probably data) so we are not sure if we should attempt to modify the example or see what else we can find.

If these are WS2812B LED's, as the AM site suggests that they are, they will only have three signal wires: +5vdc, Gnd, Signal (or sometimes called Data).

The Adafruit libraries and examples, mentioned by Chris, can teach you what you need to get started.
I would suggest opening one of the examples and then running it to see if it works. If not, figure out where the problem is. Once running, "Save-as" to a new location. Then use the saved version to start tinkering.

[Phred7]

Thank you for all the help! After reading almost all the documentation you provided us with I finally foung the FastLED.h library and we are now experimenting with the example programs and creating our own! Thanks again.

FRC team 2906