Hello everyone!
Another update on the ESP8266!
Recently, an Arduino compatible IDE was released for the ESP and I’m super keen to try it out. I’ll download it later today and give it a go, ideally I want the adafruit neopixel library to work as then I can connect my coaster to the internet!
More on that in a minute.
Yesterday two things arrived in the post, my 16 neopixel ring, and my NodeMCU dev board.
Both very exciting!
Maybe I can combine the two? 😉
The dev board is because ive had difficulty flashing the ESP chips in the past so I was hoping to have better luck with a breakout board with inbuilt USB TTL and a flash button. I did! It flashed the latest NodeMCU firmware right away!
Node MCU is an alternate firmware for the ESP that has a runtime for Lua 5.1.4 inbuilt! So this is the excuse I’ve needed to learn a bit of lua!
I’ll also be using this later with the Arduino IDE and I’ll make up an image for cross referencing pins.
The neopixel ring is to be used in my ongoing quest for the most amazing coaster ever.
It will make my drink disco!
I’ve had a prototype in the past using a single RGB LED, then another using a disc of them, and this one is a ring, but they’re addressable!
What I’m hoping to get is a sort of rainbow flowing effect happening.
Ive got the code at a good starting point, for effect testing.
All I did was modify the example sketch that goes through a bunch of possible modes 😀
I’m driving it from a digispark board, and in the final build it will use a 3.7v lipo for power.
The LED ring does seem extremely bright, and gets a little hot during normal operation so I better look at dimming the LEDs as I only need enough light to light up my drink! Not the room Hahaha
There’s a few different sized ones too. The one with 16 and the one with 60 LEDs cost the same! D: sadly I don’t need that many though it’s far too big for my purpose hahaa
Maybe I can find a use for 60… Hehehhhh..
Oh and they come in strips too and individual of course! And boards… THERES LOTS OF CHOICES OK?
Anyway,
That’s all for now, I’ll keep y’all posted!
Bonus: it sticks to the wall of the train lol
