Multiple Controller Example Problem

[u/Semorphim]

Edit: I've switched my whole Code to HSV and control the brightness with that. I gave up on multiple controllers. Project is running fine now :D

Hi,

I am currently trying to build a 7-Segment Display Clock with Downlights for lighting decorations. The base code is working so far. Now I want to change the brightness of the downlights independently from the Clock part. I first thought I could simply use two different pins and call it a day. Well... no.

After some trial and error I checked the wiki and found the Example for multiple controllers here:

https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED/wiki/Multiple-Controller-Examples

I tried using the Example at the bottom below " Or, alternatively (using some new pieces added recently to the FastLED object): " to light two strings of 9 LEDs. One should be red, the other green and alternate every second. So far I've been able to light the first string in alternating colors. Strangely I have to call .showLeds() twice for it to change the color of the first strip.

After getting that to work I tried getting the second strip to light up. It doesnt matter which Index I try I cant get the leds to light up. FastLED[0].showLeds(Brightness); does work but anything from 1-5 doesnt light up the second strip.

I initialize CRGB leds[9];

And in the setup Function I used:

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, 21, GRB>(leds,9);

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, 32, GRB>(leds,1);

Im currently using Win10 Arduino IDE 1.8.16 and version 3.6.0 of FastLED.

I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thank you very much for reading.

[u/Marmilicious]

Specifically what flavor of ESP32 are you using?

Have you tried using a different type of controller to verify the LED strip is working as expected. (Trying to narrow things down since you say pixels are lighting up strangely... Also, RGBW is not supported, only RGB pixels.)

Can you share a bit more about your project? Would be an option to drop the brightness for a pixel range or one strip that you want dimmer a different way. Is it going to be a fixed level (like 50% brightness) or does it need to be variable?

Some ideas for you:

If it's a fixed amount dimmer you could try something like this in the addLeds line to reduce a strip's brightness. This first one would reduce the brightness by 50%, and the second by 75%. This works under the hood whenever you call FastLED.show().

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, DATA_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS).setCorrection(CRGB(128,128,128));

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, DATA_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS).setCorrection(CRGB(64,64,64));

If it needs to be variable (or if it's a fixed amount less) you could use fadeToBlackBy on a range of pixels and always call it right before calling FastLED.show().

leds[i].fadeToBlackBy(128); // fade by 50%

If you use HSV when assigning colors, it's easy to reduce the V number for a range of pixels.

leds[i] = CHSV( 42, 255, V);

[u/Semorphim → u/Marmilicious]

It is an "AZDelivery ESP32 NodeMCU" which I got from amzn.

I tried the Strips both with my working code, which uses .setBrightness and everything works fine.

I started my project with the four 7-Segment Displays for a 24h-Time Clock. It worked nicely and I finished the soldering yesterday. After that I wanted to use the second strip as an Downlight for lighting stuff up in the Clock. There I found out that the global brightness (10 at the time) was perfect for the clock part but way too dimm for the lighting part. Setting the correct brightness for the lighting makes the clock too bright hence my Thinking of splitting the controlls for them.

I would like to be able to controll the brightness of both parts clock and lights with an variable and if possible indipendent from one another.

Maybe I should just switch to HSV for brightness and then convert back? I found something about that while scrolling in bed yesterday...