Bluno + LED Kit KIT0069 + RPI and Hyperion
theguru 2020-03-09 05:58:59 9962 Views5 Replies Hi there,
I recently purchased the kit:
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/Bluetooth_Cont ... U__KIT0069
My intention was to connect it primarily to a Raspberry Pi 4 via USB to create Ambilights/ Bias lighting so the LED strip would sit behind my TV.
Having been having a few challenges with the kit, so hopefully someone can help. I initially set up the kit as per the guide in a prototyping area, and was able to get it to respond to sounds and also using the Android App control the light colours, and it looked to be functioning fine.
Then I temporarily mounted the LED kit behind the TV and relocated the power to the PWR_IN on the expansion board. Since then, the LED lights are always bright and a bit flickering. The android Bluno app still seems to work but the lights are almost always close to white coloured and only have a slight change of colour.
I tried loading the strandtest sketch and everything looks fine. The LED's go through various rainbow patterns, no flickering and everything looks fine.
Moving on, I thought I would try and interface it with the raspberry Pi and control it via Hyperion. I had a few stuggles to get it to work, but eventually they could communicate when I set the baud to 1152000. Loading the sketch FastLED on the bluno, I could see the "Ada" message in the Arduino IDE Serial monitor fine. It looked like it was somewhat working when Hyperion was started on the RPI, but on a dark screen some of the LED's would still light up and flicker different colours.
So far I've tried upgrading the bluno firmware to v1.97 and checked that the AT+VERSION=? command returned that (it was 1.93 before). I've now tried the strandtest sketch again, it works perfect. The sketch for the sound response and Android app are still producing mainly white LED's with a slight flicker in colour variation, whether I try making a sound or use the Android App to manually control the LED colours.
I'm a bit lost here as to how to troubleshoot further, given that the strandtest seems to work fine.
I was also hoping to run the USB serial at faster than 1152000 as but everytime I've tried with the FastLED sketch running faster than that I get corrupted responses in the Arduino IDE rather than the "Ada" message.
I can only think perhaps there's some grounding issue with the LED's?
Thanks,
Chris
I recently purchased the kit:
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/Bluetooth_Cont ... U__KIT0069
My intention was to connect it primarily to a Raspberry Pi 4 via USB to create Ambilights/ Bias lighting so the LED strip would sit behind my TV.
Having been having a few challenges with the kit, so hopefully someone can help. I initially set up the kit as per the guide in a prototyping area, and was able to get it to respond to sounds and also using the Android App control the light colours, and it looked to be functioning fine.
Then I temporarily mounted the LED kit behind the TV and relocated the power to the PWR_IN on the expansion board. Since then, the LED lights are always bright and a bit flickering. The android Bluno app still seems to work but the lights are almost always close to white coloured and only have a slight change of colour.
I tried loading the strandtest sketch and everything looks fine. The LED's go through various rainbow patterns, no flickering and everything looks fine.
Moving on, I thought I would try and interface it with the raspberry Pi and control it via Hyperion. I had a few stuggles to get it to work, but eventually they could communicate when I set the baud to 1152000. Loading the sketch FastLED on the bluno, I could see the "Ada" message in the Arduino IDE Serial monitor fine. It looked like it was somewhat working when Hyperion was started on the RPI, but on a dark screen some of the LED's would still light up and flicker different colours.
So far I've tried upgrading the bluno firmware to v1.97 and checked that the AT+VERSION=? command returned that (it was 1.93 before). I've now tried the strandtest sketch again, it works perfect. The sketch for the sound response and Android app are still producing mainly white LED's with a slight flicker in colour variation, whether I try making a sound or use the Android App to manually control the LED colours.
I'm a bit lost here as to how to troubleshoot further, given that the strandtest seems to work fine.
I was also hoping to run the USB serial at faster than 1152000 as but everytime I've tried with the FastLED sketch running faster than that I get corrupted responses in the Arduino IDE rather than the "Ada" message.
I can only think perhaps there's some grounding issue with the LED's?
Thanks,
Chris
2020-03-24 06:54:08 Yes, the RPI will be the video source and run the hyperion daemon, and the Bluno will drive the LED's.
Sorry if I got a bit ahead of my goals. I tried using the FastLED test module for Bluno/Arduino and that all worked fine. (Hyperion uses FastLED rather than Adafruit_NeoPixel.h) I also managed to increase the serial buffer size but that also had no effect. Also worked out to change from RGB to GBR to get the demo to light up in the correct order. (Flash red, then green then blue).
Seems difficult to tap into the RPI serial, but perhaps I could set up an intermediary virtual device to spy on it and try and see if the right signals are getting sent out. theguru
Sorry if I got a bit ahead of my goals. I tried using the FastLED test module for Bluno/Arduino and that all worked fine. (Hyperion uses FastLED rather than Adafruit_NeoPixel.h) I also managed to increase the serial buffer size but that also had no effect. Also worked out to change from RGB to GBR to get the demo to light up in the correct order. (Flash red, then green then blue).
Seems difficult to tap into the RPI serial, but perhaps I could set up an intermediary virtual device to spy on it and try and see if the right signals are getting sent out.
theguru 2020-03-14 06:04:11 Hi Nana,
Thanks for responding. I think I was getting myself rather confused; at some stage I also swapped over to using the Arduino IDE on the RPI instead of the PC as well...
Not exactly sure what changed, but I re-uploaded the test BLE sketch for the kit and that is working again as normal, (responding to sounds) as well as the Bluno test app on mobile.
If I swap over to the other sketch for Hyperion, I get the blinking lights again whenever the Hyperion service is running on the RPI. If I stop the service, the blinking stops and after a few seconds the LED's turn off. When I have the Hyperion sketch loaded I can see the green TX/RX light on the Bluno flashing constantly like it's communicating with the RPI over USB.
The Hyperion guide I'm trying to follow is here - https://hyperion-project.org/threads/di ... -apa102.8/ - I'm not trying to use a separate HDMI capture board, just what's on the RPI screen.
It just seems a bit confusing as throughout the Hyperion website there a different sketches for apparently the same thing.
The power configuration I have currently is for the Bluno and the LED's to use the power supply that came with the kit - using PWR_IN connectors on the Bluno expansion and the same +ve and -ve also attached to the LED lights. The RPI has it's own dedicated RPI4 rated power supply. I think I read somewhere about only connecting the -ve to the Bluno and perhaps powering it via the USB power from the RPI?
I'm pretty new to analogue power and trying to be careful not to damage anything, so always make sure that the power supply from the kit is plugged in whenever the LED's are connected, and disconnect the USB between the RPI and Bluno before removing the power to the LED's/Bluno...
Another thing I haven't tried yet is where they mention about adjusting the Bluno/Arduino Serial buffer size - in the guide they mention editing a source file - (The h obby tron ics.c o.uk/arduino-serial-buffer-size link that I can't insert here) - I installed Arduino IDE on Windows via the App store so it's not in program files, and on the RPI I haven't worked out where the equivalent would be.
Ultimately it would be great to have a combination of both sketches working somehow; be able to make it respond to sound and controllable via bluetooth/mobile to be a static colour, but also switch to a mode where it's performing the ambilight function replicating the RPI display.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm not sure why the forum says that link has an insensitive word and is being blocked by the forum, apologies in advance if there is something I've missed but I couldn't see any reason why it should be blocked.
Thanks,
Chris theguru
Thanks for responding. I think I was getting myself rather confused; at some stage I also swapped over to using the Arduino IDE on the RPI instead of the PC as well...
Not exactly sure what changed, but I re-uploaded the test BLE sketch for the kit and that is working again as normal, (responding to sounds) as well as the Bluno test app on mobile.
If I swap over to the other sketch for Hyperion, I get the blinking lights again whenever the Hyperion service is running on the RPI. If I stop the service, the blinking stops and after a few seconds the LED's turn off. When I have the Hyperion sketch loaded I can see the green TX/RX light on the Bluno flashing constantly like it's communicating with the RPI over USB.
The Hyperion guide I'm trying to follow is here - https://hyperion-project.org/threads/di ... -apa102.8/ - I'm not trying to use a separate HDMI capture board, just what's on the RPI screen.
It just seems a bit confusing as throughout the Hyperion website there a different sketches for apparently the same thing.
The power configuration I have currently is for the Bluno and the LED's to use the power supply that came with the kit - using PWR_IN connectors on the Bluno expansion and the same +ve and -ve also attached to the LED lights. The RPI has it's own dedicated RPI4 rated power supply. I think I read somewhere about only connecting the -ve to the Bluno and perhaps powering it via the USB power from the RPI?
I'm pretty new to analogue power and trying to be careful not to damage anything, so always make sure that the power supply from the kit is plugged in whenever the LED's are connected, and disconnect the USB between the RPI and Bluno before removing the power to the LED's/Bluno...
Another thing I haven't tried yet is where they mention about adjusting the Bluno/Arduino Serial buffer size - in the guide they mention editing a source file - (The h obby tron ics.c o.uk/arduino-serial-buffer-size link that I can't insert here) - I installed Arduino IDE on Windows via the App store so it's not in program files, and on the RPI I haven't worked out where the equivalent would be.
Ultimately it would be great to have a combination of both sketches working somehow; be able to make it respond to sound and controllable via bluetooth/mobile to be a static colour, but also switch to a mode where it's performing the ambilight function replicating the RPI display.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm not sure why the forum says that link has an insensitive word and is being blocked by the forum, apologies in advance if there is something I've missed but I couldn't see any reason why it should be blocked.
Thanks,
Chris
theguru 