How exactly would I go about cutting blinkytape to make each led distance longer/shorter? I know some soldering would likely be involved, but I’ve never soldered before. Do I just cut on the dotted line then solder the wires onto blinkytape? What kind of wire would I need? Would it still work with pattern paint if I cut each led? Thank you very much for your help!

I am able to to import individual images into PatternPaint using File => Open => Frame Based Pattern, but ideally I'd like to open a sequence of images all named the same with incrementing frame numbers as an animation. Is this possible? I have not found a way to create an animation based off of multiple images. Even bringing them in manually adds new patterns rather than creating new frames within.

Thank you

I am on a Macbook Air 2015 running Sierra. I have an EightbyEight blinky that on the back says 2016. I am using PatternPaint 2.4.1.

Every time I try to download a file from PatternPaint to the Blinky it says Error Message: Command getFirmwareVersion timed out. I had apparently been able to Restore the Firmware and download the file, but when unplugged, the Blinky would just go dark and then play the default Beer animation instead of the one I was trying to add.

After that “success” I tried following instructions I found in the forum to use the Terminal to update firmware to 1.0.1 and it went back to giving me the same error message (Command getFirmwareVersion timed out) and when I try the Restore Firmware from inside PatternPaint again it seems to be doing it, but it doesn’t seem to change anything and I get the same error.

I thought using the PatternPaint app would allow me not to have to use the Arduino IDE and would be an all in one solution to just add quick animations to the Blinky. Am I wrong?

I’ve tried to read through other posts and understand how to fix this, but I’ll be honest: I am a total noob and got lost reading the instructions. (ARM? Homebrew?) It is very overwhelming for something I thought was going to be very easy to work with.

Any (step-by-step) suggestions of things to try?

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!

Source code here: https://github.com/digitalaudiotape/CorazonNervioso

I just discovered Patternpaint which seems amazing! :O

I want to use it to simulate animations for an LED strip. In the end, I need an excel graphic file which describes my animations: their RGB levels and intensity every second. Do you know how I can do this?

Thank you!!

I was able to get PatternPaint working with it, but when I tried to upload one of the example sketches, I get the errors:
warning: espcomm_sync failed error: espcomm_open failed error: espcomm_upload_mem failed

I followed the instructions in the Getting Started Guide to load the ESP8266 Board info.

I am pretty new to Arduino, so I could be making some newbie mistake that's just not documented in the 8x8 docs.

Here is the full set of steps I've gone through so far:
Basic Connection

• downloaded and installed arduino IDE for Mac v1.8.4
• followed instructions to Install the ESP8266 Board
• configured the Tools > Board configs according to the screencap in the Getting Started guide (also set Tools > Port to /dev/cu.usbmodem1421
• at this point I could open the Serial Port monitor and it shows debug info when you hold the button down (mac & IP address, accelerometer info)

Pattern Paint

• downloaded the app from http://blinkinlabs.com/blinkytape/patternpaint/
• quit out of the arduino app and restarted the pattern paint app to get the "save to blinky" button to be enabled
• I also had to do "tools > restore firmware" to get the 8x8 to respond to pattern paint
• after that it worked to preview the patterns on the device, and when i "saved" the patterns to the blinky and unplugged it, they were added to the end of the pre-loaded demos.

Next I tried loading an Arduino sketch, starting with the BlinkyDemo from the EightByEight repo
but I get an error whenever I try to upload a sketch. I tried out some of the example arduino sketches too, and they're giving the same error.

Here's the full output when I try to upload a sketch:
Archiving built core (caching) in: /var/folders/8l/s03hdskd4xv2jskdlwyrk66c0000gn/T/arduino_cache_708934/core/core_esp8266_esp8266_generic_CpuFrequency_80,FlashFreq_40,FlashMode_qio,UploadSpeed_460800,FlashSize_2M,ResetMethod_nodemcu,Debug_Disabled,DebugLevel_None_____c9d37bcc24a4e4f34f6c8352a98fda97.a Sketch uses 275877 bytes (26%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1044464 bytes. Global variables use 35848 bytes (43%) of dynamic memory, leaving 46072 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 81920 bytes. warning: serialport_set_baudrate: baud rate 460800 may not work warning: espcomm_send_command: wrong direction/command: 0x01 0x00, expected 0x01 0x08 warning: espcomm_send_command: wrong direction/command: 0x01 0x00, expected 0x01 0x08 warning: espcomm_sync failed error: espcomm_open failed error: espcomm_upload_mem failed error: espcomm_upload_mem failed

Do I need to reset the firmware again to upload a sketch from the Arduino IDE?
If so, is the "Updating the ARM Firmware" link from the Getting Started guide the one I should follow?

Thanks in advance!

I did find animation.cpp and animation.h in the BlinkyTape repository which looks promising, but this references FastLED as the output class, rather than RGBMatrix.
So, I'm thinking what is needed is to adapt the Animation class referenced above to use RGBMatrix (instead of FastLED) as the output interface.

Does that sound right? Any other guidance as to how to approach this?

I wanted to see how I'd be able to do some programming to input a midi file to light up blinkytape's leds instead of using patternpaint. I've been using patternpaint to map the notes of a piano to the blinkytape leds and thought there has to be a quicker way to do this. What I'm envisioning is to grab a midi file online and drop it in a program, making blinkytape light up to the song. Thank you!

Bryan

I know it will charge or power two devices, but was just curious about this action.

Thanks!!

I took my blinky controller and attached it to 50 leds of the 30/m variety. I made the scarf like I did this one: http://www.instructables.com/id/Animated-LED-Scarf/

I'm playing with the "production sketch" in the Arduino IDE. I'm still a beginner but I'm familiar with the IDE and FastLED and stuff so this isn't entirely new to me. I'm trying to incorporate some of the fastLED palettes and things I use in some of FastLED example sketches but I'm having trouble adding additional things. I was able to upload the FastLED demo reel with a button press and also make edits to the production sketch successfully, but I wasn't able to do what I wanted, which was to use some of the FastLED palettes (from the ColorPalette sketch) with the short and long button press to adjust brightness and cycle through modes.

I can no longer access my codebender sketches but I usually post my code there since I'm slow with github [https://codebender.cc/sketch:433123]. I think I can describe one error I'm seeing in my sketch and I don't understand how to resolve it. I don't have this issue when uploading this sketch to other boards so I can only imagine its a leonardo thing:
uint16_t SPEED = 30;
^
exit status 1
expected unqualified-id before numeric constant

I'm going to continue to play and see if I can put something together without this.

I'd like to understand how to incorporate other FastLED functions that I typically use (incorporating palettes or things from the demo reel, for example) easily into the Production Sketch. I can typically muscle through this stuff but I spent a few hours on it last night and didn't make any progress.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

I want to buy a couple of metres of the ultra thin led strips and arrange them over a surface like this:

Can I cut / snap the LEDS into individual smaller strips and solder them together to create a shape?

If I can do this, does Paint Pattern treat it as one long continuos strip of LEDs? Or can it know the shape of the leds?

Thanks

I just recently purchased the EightbyEight at the Maker Faire. I downloaded Pattern Paint, plugged it in, and all the examples are displayed backwards. (i.e. Flashing B L I N K letters are backwards and the coffee mug handle is on the left and not on the right as shown). Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks!

I noticed that EightByEight is listed in the scene configuration. Does Pattern Paint now support EightByEight, as it does for other Blinky devices? Also, any update as to when BlinkyPendant will be supported as a continuous playback device, in the same manner as other the Blinkies?

-Trav May

I'm wondering if anyone else is having trouble getting Markdown to work? I put in a CONSIDERABLE* amount of time and effort to use Markdown for the post at this link: http://forums.blinkinlabs.com/index.php?p=/discussion/407

When I use the forum editor it says, "You can use Markdown in your post" just above the buttons for Post Discussion, Save Draft, Preview and Cancel.

What am I doing wrong?

*Using all caps because Markdown for italics isn't working for emphasis. Not shouting!

1. Could you add the system requirements (OS minimums at least) to the download page: http://blinkinlabs.com/blinkytape/patternpaint/ ?

2. Is there an older version of PatternPaint that works on Mac OS X PowerPC processors? I've got Macs running 10.4.11 (Tiger) and 10.5.8 (Leopard).

Thanks!

I was wondering if there's any instructions to get an EightByEight installed on a Windows 10 machine. I seem to be able to get the serial driver installed, but not the DFU. I have Pattern Paint 2.0.3 installed, but there does not seem to be any compatible drivers for the EightByEight. When I click on 'system info' from the help menu, it detects the Blinkinlabs EightByEight on COM7, but there are no detected blinkies listed. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers,

• Upload files and even add them inline in your posts
• Use markdown to format comments
• Paste code samples without them getting mangled up: void loop() { int i = 0; }

Please let us know if you experience any issues, or if there are any other suggestions to make this work better!

so, if I send something like 0x01, 0x02,0x03, 0xff I would expect it to light up LED 1 immediately. But actually, nothing happens.

but if I send that, then 0x00,0x00,0x00,0x05,0x06,0x07,0xff

LED 1 lights up, and nothing for LED 2.

I know I am looking at the right LEDs because I can step through them and see each light up (and the boot up pattern lights them all).

Any ideas on what is going on?

For testing, I just connected one tile to the Light Buddy and the Light Buddy connected to the Edison USB Host port.

After some learning about the details of Node serialport, I can get the tile to blink in the colors that I want. So far, I am happy.

Before I start soldering the other tiles in, I was wondering if there is some documentation on the Light Buddy. I sort of hacked my way through by digging through the sample code.

In looking at the samples and some of the source code, there are hints that the Light Buddy can do more than just take tripletts of bytes and send them off the the Tiles.

Plus there are two buttons on the board that I haven't been able to find anything out about.

Can somebody point me to some additional information? Thanks