[DIY] Amblight project/guide - Hyperion - WS2801/ WS2812B / APA102 (3 Viewers)

[Freshage]

Hahahaha, what a quote! Brilliant, I'll be using that.

Is there anyway to see the live playback of the capture other than screenshots?

 

[Rick164]

None that I know of

 

[laphroaig]

Awesome tutorial with lots of great information - thanks for making this!

Few weeks back I started ordering all the needed stuff all over the internet and I finally got the last pieces before Easter weekend. I've been trying to set up my leds for a couple of days now, and now I'm stuck - any help appreciated to debug/find out the source of my problem.

Here's my parts:
-PSU (5V, 10A, 50W)
-Lightberry USB Converter box (Arduino Leonardo adalight basically)
-USB-A to USB-B (Pi —> Arduino)
-HDMI2AV
-WS2801 5m LED strip (160 leds)
-RCA male-to-male extra connector (HDMI2AV -> USB video grabber
-Lightberry video grabber (utv007 fushicai)

Setup
-All the devices (pi2 with OSMC, PS4, Cable TV, Computer) go to my AV-receiver which has two HDMI outputs, main goes to TV and sub-out goes to hdmi2av

Problem is, I can't get hyperion to light up the leds via video feed, Hyperion app for iOS or hyperion console commands.

When I plug in the PSU for the led strip and arduino I get some random leds light up on the strip. If I plug the power in/out. When I plug in the USB input from raspberry (OSMC) all the leds shut down.

Couple of photos on the issue:
http://imgur.com/a/MaSfo

What I've tried / what is working:
-Video grabber works (I'm able to take a screenshots of the video input with console commands)
-Hyperion's output is set to /dev/ttyACM0 which is correct for the arduino-converter controlling leds (tested by plugging the device in/out and checking 'ls /dev/tty*'
-I can connect via Hyperion mobile app and Hyperion listens to the app correctly (checked by running hyperion manually and checking it's console log with 'sudo hyperiond /opt/hyperion/config/hyperion.config.json
-I've tried to disable/enable video grabber and other settings from hyperion config and tried several baud rates and output device settings (adalight, ws2801 etc..) nothing seems to work
-I've tried to power the led strip from both ends (currently plugged so that it's in the correct end and follows the direction shown by the little arrows on the strip
-I've tried running Adalight's "color swirl" Processing sketch manually for the arduino, but I get nothing.

I don't know how to debug this deeper - Everything seems to be fine except the raspberry->arduino via serial USB. Anyone experienced some of these problems or have any tips what I could try next?

 

[Rick164]

Hi @laphroaig ,

Haven't worked with the Lightberry converter box but judging by the screenshots it looks like an wiring issue especially since it gives issues without that box as well, would check a few things:

- Make sure the gnd wire is connected to both the Lightberry box and LED strips as without that you will get similar issues, they need to share the same gnd wire.
- Double check the direction of the data wires, make sure the start end is correct however typically they wouldn't work at all when connected incorrectly.
- Only connect the start point with power and data for testing to rule out any wiring issue or interference.
- Might be that your WS2801 strip has a non-standard connection order (gnd / power / data pins), would try a different order carefully or measure with multimeter to see if for instance the gnd isn't swapped for the V+.

Also make sure you get an up2date Hyperion installation by re-running the installer shown in the how-to, because depending on your install date you might have gotten an outdated Hyperion version due to a long outstanding bug with the installer script (never linked to new builds before).

 

[laphroaig]

Thanks for your reply!

- Make sure the gnd wire is connected to both the Lightberry box and LED strips as without that you will get similar issues, they need to share the same gnd wire.

These are both powered by the same 5V port, I checked both grounds and they should be fine

- Double check the direction of the data wires, make sure the start end is correct however typically they wouldn't work at all when connected incorrectly.

- Might be that your WS2801 strip has a non-standard connection order (gnd / power / data pins), would try a different order carefully or measure with multimeter to see if for instance the gnd isn't swapped for the V+.

This turned out to be true. CLK and Data were soldered wrong way - fixed this, but nothing changes. Still some of the leds light up.
Actually when I first started testing these, the GND and 5V were mixed up too, and it caused the wires turn warm/hot after a short testing so I checked
the solderings and fixed those but didn't realize to check the other two

- Only connect the start point with power and data for testing to rule out any wiring issue or interference.

I checked the direction again and it's going in the flow of the arrows on the strip. It behaved the same way even when using the wrong direction (which I did with first tries with the strip)

Also make sure you get an up2date Hyperion installation by re-running the installer shown in the how-to, because depending on your install date you might have gotten an outdated Hyperion version due to a long outstanding bug with the installer script (never linked to new builds before).

I installed using Hyperion's setup instructions for OSMC, it should be up to date and from master branch.

------

Should all the lights stay lit up when given just 5V and GND, or does it need CLK and DATA too?

I'm trying to figure out if the led strip itself is broken or is the arduino not getting or passing the serial data to LED strip correctly. Lightberry has some custom adalight software loaded to the converter box - I'm going to try to switch it with fastled-software as per your tutorial.

Although I've tried couple of different sketches for the Arduino, none of them seem to do anything differently. I always get random LEDs when connected to power.

 

[Rick164]

For those wanting more color correction options well now you have those , in the updated HyperCon there are additional options:

https://github.com/tvdzwan/hyperion/pull/534

 

[Rick164]

Should all the lights stay lit up when given just 5V and GND, or does it need CLK and DATA too?

I'm trying to figure out if the led strip itself is broken or is the arduino not getting or passing the serial data to LED strip correctly. Lightberry has some custom adalight software loaded to the converter box - I'm going to try to switch it with fastled-software as per your tutorial.

Although I've tried couple of different sketches for the Arduino, none of them seem to do anything differently. I always get random LEDs when connected to power.

Sometimes when you initially connect power there might be a spike which could light them up shortly but other than that without data connections it shouldn't do anything.
With FastLED it's the easiest to test as they offer broad support with plenty of samples, most of the led types can take a beating so hard to fry except maybe too high voltage but can't rule that out though.
Can always cut off a few at the end and see of those work separately

 

[laphroaig]

Holy hell it's working! Finally!

I played around with the Fastled examples, and made the minimal possible program to flash leds. While doing this I tested out the led option for WS2801 without DATA and CLK options and it started working.
The colors are way off though, green is blue etc, gotta start fixing that and now! Thanks for your help!

 

[Rick164]

Holy hell it's working! Finally!

I played around with the Fastled examples, and made the minimal possible program to flash leds. While doing this I tested out the led option for WS2801 without DATA and CLK options and it started working.
The colors are way off though, green is blue etc, gotta start fixing that and now! Thanks for your help!

Awesome

On another note someone recently wrote a Hyperion capture program that works under Windows (limited to DX9 applications):

https://github.com/djhansel/HyperionScreenCap

Just tested under Windows 10 and it's very nice

 

[Freshage]

Afternoon! Totally out of the blue, could you use a Raspberry Pi Zero? Purely for the LED functions (up to 300 LED's) or do you need the power a normal Pi offers?

Thanks