[DIY] Amblight project/guide - Hyperion - WS2801/ WS2812B / APA102 | Page 31

Yep, for new installs the location for configs is /etc/Hyperion btw

 

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Again, thanks Rick.

Whats that now? 10 beers owed?

Thanks

 

Yeah

 

. So I ran into another snag. After A TON of color calibration there are still problems where certain shades of brown would be displayed as orange, some orange and skin tones would be displayed as red as well as for blonde hair!
I took to the Hypercon forums and when compared to others with similar problems it is not color calibration but that Fuschai based EasyCap that will over-saturate the colors. The STK1160 along with Raspbian has the option to correct this using v4l2-ctrl controls to adjust the chroma and luminance but it can only be done on this chip since the driver for the Fuschai does not support v4l2-crtl. A user already contracted the driver author and he replied he will see when he can do it, when he has time and it it's possible. I could not find an option so far to add this in OpenElec so I don't know if it's possible.
This is just an FYI for anyone struggling to get the right colors and wondering what they are doing wrong. I already ordered an STK1160 and will let you know what my results are once it arrives. The downside? Sometimes it will cause a "Frame too small" error and the LEDs will flash blue from time to time but to me that is better than seeing blonde hair produce red.
Considering some other factors I also wonder if the HMDI to RCA converter could be causing the video colors to be over-saturated as well. Any thoughts?

 

Fushicai UT007 should have normal colors or at least the one I got from the German store at least but maybe they switched their internal hardware or reduced quality checks

Frame too small is a known issue with STK1160 which is why it's best to avoid that capture stick whenever possible, it's because it sometimes corrupts the frame or misses one which generates that Hyperion error in return.
What Hyperion could do is skip the frame but this would be a workaround at best as it's basically an hardware error.

Tried this on the RPi1 and RPi2 with both OpenElec and Rasbian but both had the same result which was the reason for switching Fushicai type which so far works flawlessly

 

I got mine off eBay, it has the Fushicai chip, could be the reason since for all I know it is a cheap clone. Don't know if it could be the HDMI to RCA converter saturating the colors as well. We'll see. I ordered another one just to eliminate it as a possibility from a different brand. I like the learning experience but it is frustrating from time to time.

 

I was going to create a new post but I guess this is a better place for this question.

I have a 50" tv that will be using APA102 LEDs with. 60 per Meter. I think in the end it will come up to around 170 to 200 LEDs. The powering unit will be a 20 amp 5v

I have already ordered a Raspberry Pi 3 (all my content will go through OSMC or OpenElec) and I know it has the SPI pins so it should be able to run the APA102 LEDs by itself without anything.

My issue is regarding the FPS. I really want these effects to be seamless so I kind of want it as close to realtime as possible (im not using any screen grabber just straight from rpi)
(examples)




This video shows what I am trying to achieve.

For this type of speed and the amount of LEDs do I need a 74HCT chip level shifter. Im not amazing at the solder gun so im not sure how well that would work.

There is also the arduino route so that the RPI doesnt have to do the work. Is this way faster or slower. If I went with this route with arduino would be best

I could also go the teensy 3.2 with the octows2811 adapter (is this overkill) This wiring seems the easiest

So I guess my real question is to control around 200 APA102 LEDs with relatively seamless operation is the RPI 3 Alone sufficient.
Do I need to add a 74HCT chip level shifter?
Do I need to step up to an Arduino?
Do I need to go the Teensy 3.2 Route?

 

Hi @matthew henry ,

For APA102 you can just connect them straight to the RPi3 SPI connectors without level shifters as it's all 5V logic, do that over here with an APA102 600 led setup (144 leds p/m variant) and works fine with > 200 FPS possible.
Hyperion has linear smoothing which lets you tweak the experience a bit, currently have it set to 160ms @ 40hz which is smooth but not too slow as the APA102 chip you can drive a lot faster than the old WS2812 ones.

Some early build videos:

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...01-ws2812b-apa102.128526/page-24#post-1174157

afterwards bumped the power supply to something more reliable and added extra cables so results are now perfect.

Only needed if you want WS2812 but otherwise stick with SPI and direct connection to RPi.

Will only add extra steps and hardware cost so would got with the RPi solution, only tested with RPi 1/2 so far but hear users using the newer RPi3 without any mayor issues.
If you do run into any you can also check out the Hyperion forum btw

https://hyperion-project.org/

 

@Rick164 , I decided to make the conversion to OSMC since there are more options to play around with, especially since I immediately noticed that OSMC seems more responsive than OpenElec. So far all is working fine except for a few minor issues I ran into while such as learning that the root user has to be enabled in OSMC and that the config file location to set the UART speed is different than OpenElec
I followed the installation guide on this page since using Hypercon alone gave me a bunch of warning and errors about files not found, missing dependencies, or not having the proper permissions. After mucking around with it, it seems like the installation is done, all my LEDs are up and running.
I switched to the STK11660 capture card and now I have the opposite problem where colors look washed out and in some cases, although there are bright colors on the screen there will be little or no color on the Ambilight. I will performing a completely clean install since, like mentioned above, it was some trial and error. Am also going to be switching back to the Fushicai card since saturated colors are better than little or no color at all. It's still gonna drive me nuts if after this my skin tones and blonde hair give me a deep red. Gonna start from scratch if that's the case.

Just for comparison's sake, I know you use the APA102 LEDs and the Fushicai card, but what OS do you have installed on your RPi? . I have the latest release of OSMC.

 

Raspbian on the RPi as I only use with for Hyperion but it can run Kodi if you want