rpilights

Software for LED window display such as the one in this video.

Hardware

Lights here. This link may be outdated at some point as the vendor likes to play Feng Shui with his listings. Also, be aware that the delivery times might sometimes be very long, like several months, so plan ahead!

If the link is outdated (likely), look for these keywords:

• WS2811
• 12mm
• Diffused
• RGB
• LED
• Round
• IP68
• DC 5V

Either mount in pegboard (holes every 2 inches drilled out to 12mm) or in 1/2 inch grid hardware cloth.

You will an external 5v power supply to power the lights if there are more than 100 or so. I use this one. The +5v and GND will need to be connected to the power wires around every 200 lights due to internal resistance of the wires and circuitry. Otherwise you will see the intensity of the lights dim noticeably at the far end.

Also, unless you boost the Pi's GPIO 3v signal to 5v, make sure the signal wire is very short, a half foot or a foot at most. Otherwise the lights will flash randomly.

See the "Limitations" info in the README for the rpi_ws281x submodule -- on some Pis, the sound submodule keeps the lights from working and needs to be disabled.

It is difficult to figure out which end of the light strand is to receive the signal. Peer into the lights to see if you can make out which side of the internal circuit board has the labels +5V, DIN (or DI), GND vs. +5v, DOUT (or DO), GND. The waterproof resin that fills each bulb is hazy and distorted, so this can be quite a challenge. Sometimes there is an arrow that points away from the wires that are to receive the signal.

Software

Install into the directory /home/pi/rpilights:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
cd /home/pi
git clone --recursive git://github.com/yggdrasilradio/rpilights.git

The command "make" should build the "rpilights" command, but it won't work properly until you configure the map.txt file to reflect the physical layout of your LED display.

The "snow" animation vertically scrolls the graphic data in the file images/snow.gif.rgb.

The "valentines" animation horizontally scrolls the graphic data in the file images/valentines.gif.rgb.

The "stpatricks" animation horizontally scrolls the graphic data in the file images/stpatricksday.gif.rgb.

The .rgb files are generated from the script gif2rgb (requires installation of ImageMagick) via the commands:

gif2rgb snow.gif
gif2rgb valentines.gif
gif2rgb stpatricksday.gif

Make your own files with the dimensions of your display, as the existing data probably doesn't match those dimensions.

map.txt file

The "map.txt" file describes the physical layout of your LED lights as an ASCII picture, viewed from the back of the display. The existing map.txt file is for a complicated two-channel multi-panel display that I have in my four basement windows right now. Please edit it to reflect the arrangement of your lights:

o		LED lights
| and --	wires
0 and 1		The first LED light on channels 0 (pin 18) and 1 (pin 19)
.		(dot) Unused light position (gaps between windows)

For example, a simple 10x10 LED panel might look like this:

o--o  o--o  o--o  o--o  o--o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
0  o--o  o--o  o--o  o--o  o

The format of the map.txt file is very fussy; it can't have comments in it, blank lines at the beginning, the spacing has to be exactly like the examples, etc.

rpilights command

The "rpilights" command by itself with no further arguments should give a list of possible commands:

Usage:	rpilights on		Turn lights on (show last animation)
	rpilights off		Turn lights off
	rpilights weather	Display scrolling time, date, weather
	rpilights red		Set all lights to red
	rpilights blue		Set all lights to blue
	rpilights green		Set all lights to green
	rpilights magenta	Set all lights to magenta
	rpilights yellow	Set all lights to yellow
	rpilights cyan		Set all lights to cyan
	rpilights rainbow	Display scrolling rainbow pattern
	rpilights ip		Display scrolling IP address
	rpilights pacman	Display Pacman animation
	rpilights snow		Display snow animation
	rpilights lines		Display random lines animation
	rpilights twinkle	Display twinkle lights animation
	rpilights valentines	Display Valentine's Day animation
	rpilights stpatricks	Display St Patrick's Day animation
	rpilights christmas	Display Christmas animation

rc.local

The file misc/rc.local has suggested commands to add to your existing /etc/rc.local file.

.messages5x8 and .messages5x5

If these files exist, messages from .messages5x8 will scroll as well as the temperature and weather in the upper line of the weather display, and messages from .messages5x5 will scroll along with the date and time in the lower line. If there are multiple lines in the file each line will display in turn.

updatewx script

Edit the file scripts/updatewx to put your zipcode in place of mine (55337). This script gets weather info (forecast and temperature) every five minutes. You'll want to start this script from rc.local. If you don't run this, the 'weather' command won't work.