WS2812B vs WS2822S Pixels for Blinky Tile and the necessity of address programming

awardblvrawardblvr
in General Help

Blinkey Tiles use the WS2822S
[Programming tool here] (https://github.com/Blinkinlabs/WS282x_Programmer/blob/master/DmxSimpleMod.cpp)
[Specification/Datasheet here] (http://akizukidenshi.com/download/ds/worldsemi/WS2822S.pdf) )

These have DMX addresses programmed into the chip. Does anyone know:

  1. How long these chips have been around?
  2. How long they can be expect to be continued in manufacture? (VERY LITTLE about these pixels are out there)
  3. If they MUST be permanently programmed with an address before use?
  4. If the DMX address programming is changeable at some point? Can it be done "In Place" or must it be isolated? How many times can It be reprogrammed?
  5. If the Lightbuddy LED controller dies, can I get just one of those?
  6. Is there something else I could use in its place?
  7. Some of the write-ups say you COULD use Neopixels (Are these the exact same as WS2812B ?) instead of WS2822's/. What is the downside of using WS2812B's instead of WS2822S's?
  8. Where is the address programmer's specification for WS2822S?
  9. Are the Blinkey Tile 2822S's compatible with the same driver as the Blinkey Tape Control Board? What is interchangeable, if anything?

Wish I could get these questions answered in an FAQ!

Comments

  • Matt MetsMatt Mets
    1. How long these chips have been around?
    2. How long they can be expect to be continued in manufacture? (VERY LITTLE about these pixels are out there)

    They're discontinued from the manufacturer, however we have a large stock of them. Please understand that we make the BlinkyTile, however World Semi designed and manufactured the WS2822 LED.

    1. If they MUST be permanently programmed with an address before use?
    2. If the DMX address programming is changeable at some point? Can it be done "In Place" or must it be isolated? How many times can It be reprogrammed?

    They need to be programmed once before using them, but can be reprogrammed as many times as you want.

    1. If the Lightbuddy LED controller dies, can I get just one of those?

    Yes, contact us at contact@blinkinlabs.com and we can get you a replacement

    1. Is there something else I could use in its place?

    Yes, any Arduino or similar microcontroller can be used to control them. They use the DMX protocol, but with a 0/5V signal instead of RS485.

    1. Some of the write-ups say you COULD use Neopixels (Are these the exact same as WS2812B ?) instead of WS2822's/. What is the downside of using WS2812B's instead of WS2822S's?

    Neopixel is a marketing name that Adafruit came up with to refer to the WS2812B, they are exactly the same thing. The WS2822s is controlled in parallel, so you can connect them in any way you like, while the WS2812 is connected in serial and has to be connected in

    1. Where is the address programmer's specification for WS2822S?

    It's similar to the WS2821. We had to reverse engineer it from the World Semi programmer, and unfortunately didn't document it clearly. The LightBuddy controller can be used to program the addresses, by using this Python script:
    https://github.com/Blinkinlabs/BlinkyTile/blob/master/python_example/addressprogrammer.py

    1. Are the Blinkey Tile 2822S's compatible with the same driver as the Blinkey Tape Control Board? What is interchangeable, if anything?

    By default, they aren't compatible, however you can use Arduino to modify the BlinkyTape firmware to output DMX, and then the BlinkyTape controller would be able to control the BlinkyTiles.

  • foustjafoustja

    A related question:

    I have found some great resources online (Jason Coon's tutorial, the FastLED web site, etc.) to help with programming the Arduino (and related boards, like the Adafruit Metro Mini and Pololu A-Star) for BlinkyTiles, using the DMXSimple library.

    However, my daughter, who works for RasPi, just gave me one of those things. It is a pretty remarkable device, but figuring out how to program it (in Python, which seems to be it's preferred language) has been a bit of a challenge.

    I did find one page that shows how to control WS2812/Neopixels in Python using a Python neopixel library, but I'm having a difficult time finding anything similar for DMX. (I found a few, but the instructions were incredibly confusing.)

    Is anyone in the community or Team Blinky aware of any kind of noobie-friendly Python DMX library, with straightforward examples that can be used to control BlinkyTiles with a RasPi? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Cheers,

    -Jack

  • Matt MetsMatt Mets

    Hmm- you're right that it should be possible, however I haven't seen anyone doing it yet. I think most of the people using DMX are focusing on large stage shows, rather than tiny BlinkyTiles.

    If you have a spare LightBuddy controller, you can connect it to your Raspberry Pi and use our python examples to control it. It should work exactly the same as on a PC (all of our test rigs use Raspberry Pis this way).

  • foustjafoustja

    That's exactly what I did for a little RasPi demo that I attended this week (RasPi to LightBuddy). Worked very nicely. Seems like the most practical way to run BlinkyTiles with RasPi, at least for the time being.

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