Pixels by Nano...

So what if you don't want to get up and down the ladder every year to install those lights in December to compete with the neighbors?

Well, you get up there once and install some hooks behind the facia to hang the lights up permanently! But wait, if you want the light to go pink during Valentine's day and green for St Patrick's day and the famous red/white/blue during Independence day, then you could pick a string that has some RGB capabilities...but hold on, you are not going up there any time soon, so why not just hang some Pixel strings, NeoPixels or whatever they are called when they have the WS2811 chip next to the RGB LED, or contains it inside the package (now called a WS2812)? And then you can get fancy and make any LED (or Pixel) any color!!! You might want to invest in some more expensive controlling solutions, like Lightorama or a Falcon board, but it is almost 10 lines of code on an Arduino Nano and you use only 1 pin to control more than 100 pixels!

Here we go, from the Adafruit NeoPixel example, we make all the lights random and increase the intensity every 1/2 second. Pin 6 and GND is connected from the Nano to the Pixel string's control pin and ground, and then we connect 5V or 12V (if the string is 12V capable) to the other two wires in the string. Very important that the control wire connects to the correct side of the string, since the WS2811 chips have a data input and a data output side. On my strings, the IC is on the down-string side, easy to remember, but check your datasheet first!

How does the data get through the string to the other side? Well, remember when we played "telephone" as kids, whisper something in someone's ear and then they pass the message along. Well, almost, but here the message does not get changed, zeros and ones stay perfect. The big difference here is that the first person keeps the first word of the sentence for himself, and only pass the rest on, 2nd guy does the same, keep the first word he hears for himself and pass the rest on...so, with each person having 3 LEDs and each controlled with 8 bits (0-255), a total of 24 bits per Pixel. Since each data bit is sent with a high and a low (but less time high if it is a zero and less time low if it is a 1 )

... imagine data coming only in Morse code as short+long (imagine this is 0) or long+short (imagine this is 1), you don't need a clock line...and when there is an long silence, it resets the data stream (but not the LEDs, they stick to their last set color, until updated or power removed) and the first Pixel will remove the first 24 bits again. The IC's also do some reshaping of the data it is about to pass along, so distance from the source is not important, as long as the next IC is within 30 feet! (Just remember that there would be a nice voltage drop on the supply line too at these lengths, so white might not be white any more).

Here is the Random Pixel code, while increasing the intensity every 1/2 second:

// NeoPixel Ring simple sketch (c) 2013 Shae Erisson
// released under the GPLv3 license to match the rest of the AdaFruit NeoPixel library
// Randomized by Speed, in 2016
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#include <avr/power.h>
// Which pin on the Arduino is connected to the Pixels?
// On a Trinket or Gemma we suggest changing this to 1
#define PIN 6
// We have two 50 Pixel strings strung together
#define PIXELS 100
// When we setup the NeoPixel library, we tell it how many pixels, and which pin to use to send signals.
Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels = Adafruit_NeoPixel( PIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800 );
float dim = 0.0;

void setup( ) {
Serial.begin( 115200 );
Serial.println( "Random Pixels v0.02" );
pixels.begin( ); // This initializes the NeoPixel library.
} // setup

void loop() {
for( int i = 0; i < PIXELS; i++ ) {
// Random all the way, but increasing in brightness ... GRB
pixels.setPixelColor( i, pixels.Color( (int)(dim * random( 255 )), (int)(dim * random( 255 ) ), (int)(dim * random( 255 ) ) ) );
} // for

pixels.show(); // Show the pixels
delay( 500 ); // Here is the 1/2 second wait
dim = dim + 0.05; // Increase the intensity

if ( dim > 1.0 ) // and when we reach 1.0
dim = 0; // we go dark again
} // loop

Or, for a little more fun, as the video shows, you can initialize the pixels with green (mode [-1]), slide in a red bar (mode [0]), run it to the end (mode [1]) and then run it back (mode [2]) ... here is the Serial monitor to show the green with zeros and the red with ones:

pizels.begin v0.03

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