WS2812 Bullet RGB LED string
Publison
Posts: 12,366
I have trying to find this particular LED string. I can get WS2811 strings all day long. With the software I am going to be using WS2812 has singular LED granularity. Also the 5 volt power is a little cheaper.
I am looking for the same type sold in this bundle:
https://www.parallax.com/product/p2-live-forum-holiday-spin2-kit/
They are WS2811.
Anybody bought these recently?
Comments
All of mine were of the breadboard mounted variety, that includes the ones from Parallax and the first were a batch from Adafruit. They are https://adafruit.com/product/1312 and of course they look like
but you want these https://adafruit.com/product/322 who look much like those before, as described here
Is that the gang you're looking for? Of course you are.
No robots but plenty of mascots
I don't know if the WS2801 is supported by my software.
The WS2801 -- I believe -- was the first "smart" LED driver. A friend who imports a lot of LEDs told me about them when I was working on this project for Steve Wang.
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/12/7d/52/127d52c12083aaf727d5d8e144f66691.jpg
I have an old P1 driver for them somewhere. I'll look for it.
Thanks Jon! I'll look into them.
Found it. I haven't used this driver since 2013! -- World Semi introduced the 2811 which was a better version, then followed up with the WS2812, etc.
Important: The color constants in this driver are 24 bits, hence different than my modern drivers which shift everything left by 8 bits to make room for white when using 32-bit pixels.
Here's the last big project I used it on: a costume for Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland for the League of Legends World Championship opener. It was really nerve-wracking seeing him loaded onto stage elevator. I went out to the front of stage. When he appeared, 15000 people inside the Staples Center went wild. I was very happy. He wore that costume on tour for about a year and there are many images of it one the web.
Skip ahead to about 5:-30 to see Wes's entrance.
The fanny-pack that he's wearing has a P1 QuickStart with a custom shield for the connections. Power came from a battery I borrowed from y Elev8 quad copter. Anyway, it worked, and everybody was happy. The animation for this show is very simple. While on tour, he could press a button on his helmet to change the animation.
I will say, LED pixel strips are better now. You can see in the video we have some funky pixels. We decided to leave them alone because trying to repair them could have caused more harm than it fixed.
The funny thing about the WS2801 is that the protocol is so simple (SPI out with no CS requirement), I was able to test the first units I received with a BS2. Once we knew that would work for the project (guy with the orb), I wrote a P1 driver -- we always used the P1 on the big displays.
I will look into this device. Thanks Jon!