Help with setting up LEDs

vajello2640 · November 8, 2023, 4:56pm

We’re having trouble setting up some LEDs this off season for testing purposes for next year but our team lacks the expertise to do it right. We bought the CTRE CANdle and LEDs for it but is there anything else we need to get it working? We’re having difficulties understanding the CTRE instructions for the CANdle on what goes with what color. Any help would be greatly appreciated and excuse me if there’s a post already done on this subject.

atsekhan · November 8, 2023, 5:14pm

Here is our LED code from 2023

github.com

FRC999/2023Competition/blob/ScrollingLEDTest/2023-CompetitionBot/src/main/java/frc/robot/subsystems/CANdleSubsystem.java

// Copyright (c) FIRST and other WPILib contributors.
// Open Source Software; you can modify and/or share it under the terms of
// the WPILib BSD license file in the root directory of this project.

package frc.robot.subsystems;

import com.ctre.phoenix.led.CANdle;
import com.ctre.phoenix.led.CANdleConfiguration;
import com.ctre.phoenix.led.CANdle.LEDStripType;
import com.ctre.phoenix.led.CANdle.VBatOutputMode;

import edu.wpi.first.wpilibj2.command.SubsystemBase;
import frc.robot.Constants.CANdleConstants;

import frc.robot.CharToByteArray;

public class CANdleSubsystem extends SubsystemBase {

  private final int LEDOFFSET = 8; // move LED numbers because there are 8 LEDs on the controller

This file has been truncated. show original

We had a routine for scrolling messages, so it’s a bit advanced one. Nevertheless, it has methods that allow you to control individual LEDs and do all kinds of interesting things with them.

This is the method that actually lights up the individual LED with a specific color:

github.com

FRC999/2023Competition/blob/0ca369c1ce3b63d531446447a53dc80c4c58d74e/2023-CompetitionBot/src/main/java/frc/robot/subsystems/CANdleSubsystem.java#L55


      
              System.out.println("CANdle initalization complete");
              
            }
          
            public void setAllLEDToColor(int[] rgb) {
              candle.setLEDs(rgb[0], rgb[1], rgb[2]);
              candle.modulateVBatOutput(0.9);
            }
          
            // Turn one LED to a specific color
            public void setOneLEDToColor(int[] rgb, int ledNumber) {
              candle.setLEDs(rgb[0], rgb[1], rgb[2], 0, ledNumber, 1);
              candle.modulateVBatOutput(0.9);
            }
          
            public void setLEDOff() {
              candle.setLEDs(0, 0, 0);
              candle.modulateVBatOutput(0);
            }
          
          //we need to figure out what object type this is set equal to/what should be

I hope it helps, and I can answer additional questions if needed.

vajello2640 · November 8, 2023, 6:15pm

Thank you for sharing your code! This will be helpful for sure but we need help in understanding the basics of physical wiring it in the first place. We’re unsure on what color wire goes with the other colored wires and where they all should be connected to. Basically a layout of sorts or something similar. We just don’t want to cut something before realizing we done messed up. Thanks

atsekhan · November 8, 2023, 6:52pm

The CANdle documentation on the CTR web site specifies exactly what you need to do, and which wire goes where. Let me know if you cannot find it.

vajello2640 · November 8, 2023, 8:09pm

Ahhh thank you! We found out on the website, must’ve overlooked it.