DiyLightAnimation

Hi everyone,

This might be too technical a question to post here.  If you know of other blinky light forums I might submit to, let me know.  I've also emailed the writer of the Arduino library I mention below.

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I've successfully used the FastSPI library with my Boarduino to control a WS2801 LED strip of 160 LED's but have major data garbage when using the same Arduino setup to drive some WS2801 pixels modules. 

FastSPI library:
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Here are the products I bought:

LED Strip:
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LED Modules:
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The strip works great.  The modules, not so much.  Everything is powered by a PC power supply - 5v for the strip and 12v for the modules.

I've been driving the data lines with the Arduino digital lines just like the strip.  I couldn't find any data on the logic levels so I also tried a resistor divider to drop the data lines to 3.3v.  The  modules act exactly the same.

Here's the LED strip in action (with the count dropped to 20 and a larger delay() on some of the routines):

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And, here are the modules in action:

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Does anyone have any ideas why the two systems perform so differently?

Thanks, in advance, for any thoughts you may have to share,

Michael Morlan
512.791.4121

1 please

1 (one) Kit 3 please

Rick aka rmp2917 discovered a solder bridge between pins 40 & 41 of the Ethernet chip. A little flux and solder braid and the bridge was removed and the board functional.

Here's Rick's troubleshooting procedure in his own words:

"To start with, I setup my equipment to provide a known working test bed. Since I have 2 ED’s, I have one setup for PixelNet connected to a smart string and one for DMX connected to a Lynx Express. I used xLights to test the units. It was easier to setup and use the test panel instead of using Vixen.

"I connected your LE in place of mine and everything was working fine. Each of the channel LEDs responded according to values I was sending from xLights. I connected a string of lights to all 16 outputs to verify that they actually lit.

"Now that I knew the LE was OK, I moved on to the EtherDongle. I placed your ED in place of mine. Everything appeared to be working. However, there was no response from the LE. At first I thought there may be an issue on the output side, so, I made an adapter that allowed me to connect the LE on universe 4. I got the same result.

"The Ethernet chip seemed to be receiving data from the PC since the LEDs on the jack were responding appropriately. Also, the PIC seemed to be sending data to the LE since the data LED on the LE was lit. Also, after removing my ED, the channels were still on and as soon as I plugged yours in all channels turned off. This led me to believe that there was an issue with communication between the PIC and the Ethernet chip. So, I started checking those connections.

"I found that pins 40 and 41 of the Ethernet chip seemed to be shorted. The resistance on yours was 0.9 Ω while the resistance on both of mine was 6 point something MΩ. I looked for possible shorts on the board, but could not find any. So, I started looking at the chip itself. It looked like there might have been a little solder between the pins, but it was really hard to tell. I used a flux pen to add some flux to the pins. Then, I used solder braid with a fine tip on the soldering iron to remove the solder. The resistance between the two pins was now 6 point something MΩ.

"I reconnected the ED and ran through the test again. Everything was now working and the LE was responding as expected."

So, there ya go.

A big huge shout out to Rick aka rmp2917 for his most excellent service, not only to me, but to the DLA community.  If it would serve the site, I'll write an ETD troubleshooting guide based on the experiences of this thread and Rick's work.

Best to all,

Michael

I've tried ver 1 and ver 2.

M

caretaker,

Excellent.  Then we can compare yours against the ones I've posted here and against the E1.31 spec.

Best,

Michael

Ah.  Interesting.

I'll have some time to test it next week.  Away from the house through the weekend.

Best,

M