Hitting bottleneck controlling close to 4,000 LEDs!

Hi!

Thanks lucasm for this nice solution.
On my side I can’t send the data by serial. Do you know how I could convert your code to work over udp?

Thanks a lot

create a udp Out node, and an execute DAT (if you want to execute every frame), and in the execute dat you’ll need to get the contents of a chop channel and assign it to a python list.

Then to send that byte array/list through the UDP out node you’d need something like this (replacing the psuedo names with your UDP node name, and python list respectively.)

name_of_Python_Byte_Array = name_of_chop[channel_indicie].vals
op(“UDP_out_node_name”).sendBytes(*name_Of_Python_Byte_Array)

NOTE: the " * " sign is neccesary, it’s called the splat operator I believe, it basically takes a list and breaks it’s contents down into separate arguments which is what .sendBytes likes (correct me if I have this wrong!)

Bit of a late comer to this awesome post, but I just wanted to say thank you! :smiley: :smiley:

hey, first of all thanks for the great stuff!
i’m quite new to td and i’m using a macbook pro… and somehow this patch doesn’t work there.
i think the serial is sending some strange things. On a windows machine everything works just fine.
Does anybody know if there is any difference in the serial output?

We’ve just made a fix to the MAC serial library which was cutting off messages longer than 1K in length.
Look for it in builds 2018.22930 and later.
Cheers

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thanks!

New build 2018.23080 posted now which has a fix for this.

Download

hey guys!
one question:
has some way i make work with an arduino or only with teensy boards?
second question:
can i make work with a teensy 2? or need to be a teensy 3.1?
thanks!

I had good luck with the teensy and octoWS2811 board. According this page :OctoWS2811 LED Library, Driving Hundreds to Thousands of WS2811 LEDs with Teensy 3.0 it does require a 3.x version teensy. You might also have a look at the ESP32 boards for wireless connectivity as well depending on how many leds you want to control.

Hi

firstly thanks for everything you’ve done.

I try to easily run just one 20LED strip with no octo board (only breadboard) with no luck.

I use MacOs 10.13.6 and Teensy 3.5, do I need to change an Arduino script somehow?

Fetching the bytes to serialConnector DAT seems not working…

Thanks in advance

Just used the last update of the code and got it working pretty much in the first shot! thanks!

This looks Awesome! Thanks for your hard work! I am having trouble getting your pixelcontroller to work with my setup. I am using a teensy 3.2 and OCTOWS2811 with ws2812b leds, single strip for now. Do I need to change anything for my setup to work?

Thanks!

To add on to Lucas’ most recent resources, here is something for the people who just want to run it on a simple old Arduino board.

A few people were asking previously, and as someone getting back into hardware after a decade or so, I figured this might help some people newer to that side of things, and is more or less plug and play.

Directions:

  1. Download the FastLED zip and .toe file Lucas linked to (you can also just download the latest version of FastLED from fastled.io)

  2. Download the file attached here to this post.

  3. Open the Arduino file from here, and run it in the Arduino IDE. Adjust variables and brightness to the size of your LED grid, etc. Make sure you upload it to your board using the correct port and all that now.

  4. Remember that port or look back at it in Arduino lol. Open the .toe file and look for the serialConnector operator. Click on it and you will see a line for Port here, type in your port number there.

  5. Press enter.

  6. Smile at how easy that was and the inspiration you have for making something supafly. Arduino-TouchDesigner-LED-tgs.zip (1.2 KB)

Hello everyone,

I’ve been trying recently to use the serial node and just found this topic, looks like you got some really cool results !

@thegladscientist I followed your last post for a regular Arduino setup, but I’m experiencing weird flickering and colors that doesn’t seem to make any sense compared to what I’m sending. (It’s flickering even when I’m sending a constant TOP)

I have an arduino UNO and a single WS2811 led strip, any idea where this could come from ?
I’ve tried all the baud rates values listed, nothing seens to match. :pensive:

Hello. I have the same issue. Do you attain any success on it?

Hey Guys,

Thanks for sharing your hard work. Over the last few days I tried to reproduce all things discussed here and read all the posts several times. I have one led strip fully working with teensy 3.2, octo and fastled libraries, correct Toe file and Arduino sketch.

Now I want to ad another led strip. I tested it with another octo library example and both strips work fine. But I can not get the second strip working when I use:
ws2811-12-12b_DrivingSolution_BareBones.1
Arduino-TouchDesigner-LED-tgs

Do I need to ad more pins in the Arduino Sketch, or make changes in th Toe file, I believe I have tried everything without result.

Who can help me?
Al the best,
Rob R.

Hi everyone,

I was trying the same thing recently and came across this thread. I found the solution for the erratic behaviour of lights while using Arduino Uno.
I think it is happening due to the baudrate constraints of Uno. I executed is on Mega and it is working very well. The baudrate I am using is 460800. So far I have tested on 8x8 matrix and is working well.

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I am so excited I found this thread. I’ve only been learning TouchDesigner recently, and I just found this possible solution for pixel mapping with my OctoWS2811/Teensy 3.2 setup. I’ve been on and off searching for a few years now, and this seems like what I have been needing all along.

I currently have some issues with my 5v WS2813 LEDs and may need to inject power at each end of my 16 x 150 LED strips. When I am attempting to do any sort of pixel mapping, the colors are not consistent down the strips as my LEDs are illuminating, especially when lots of LED’s are illuminated all at once. My current wiring and configuration both need a serious re-design, and I am glad I stumbled upon this in my searches late this evening.

Are there any updates since 2015 LOL?

haha 2015 was a while back. Hmm, I’d say personally some insights I wish I had taken to earlier which I think are more understood today are:

  1. go 12v leds not 5v. 5v is good for experimenting with a few pixels on your desk and a cheap 5v supply or usb cable but really you run into the voltage drop situation with longer runs very soon in your projects. Hell even 24v if you anticipate really long runs over a ceiling that you can’t power inject to the other side of. I think 12 is a good middle of the road though. For me I was building my own lighting gear for small concerts and things like that, and I intentionally got onboard with one pixel type for continuity, but that was 5v and it turned into a nightmare of cable injection with really heavy 10-12 awg cables :sweat_smile:

  2. advatek, alphapix, etc are really great products, stable, reliable, a bit more expensive though. I’d recommend these over the teensy for most things, but teensys are small, really powerful too, and work over usb if that is something you want. maybe good for an artcar or something where you need or want to do a bunch of custom wiring anyways.

Those are more of insights rather than updates, but maybe of use!

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Last Teensy vers (4.1) has an ethernet chip and can go 100mbits. There’s an artnet library available somewhere and you can make an simpler version of the advatek board. With the added bonus to have local processing power to generate custom animations if not connected to a network or read animations stored on an sd card.

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