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Smart LED Mod: Full RGB Control! a must see!

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by Austin, Jul 19, 2015.

  1. Austin

    Austin Team ROBO 3D
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    Hey guys,

    Just wanted to share a recent mod that's been in development for some time now for kicks and gigs. It uses an arduino compatible LED strip driver to add functionality to your printers LED's. I installed this on my beater R1 so try and ignore the creepy/horrendous paintjob!

    I basically incorporated the library for an LED driver into the firmware and create custom command "codes" to control it. I also wrote some temperature variables in for some fun as well as adding another menu to the Smart LCD controller for easy accessibility when away from computer. But the original version of the code this was built on was written by a couple guys and I in August 2014.



    You have the option of addressing either the LED's in the case or the LED's on the extruder carriage or both.
    You can choose between 7 preset colors or a custom color choice of your own (over 1,000,000 possible color combinations)

    Another feature is the BREATHE mode. The original code for this function was written by Ted back when we were first working on the original code. It fades the LED's in and out simulating "breathing". The breathing rate increases when the printer begins heating. It really brings the printer to life in my opinion. Once the printer is heated up and printing, the breathing stops and the LED's are put in a solid state.

    I also added some blinking functions and assigned them "codes". They can be placed in the start gcode or end gcode like any other code. I like using them for signaling errors or completed tasks (ie homing, heating, printing, resuming, stopping, starting, pretty much any function you can think of).

    I achieved this with only $15 worth of extra components. I will put up a step by step tutorial soon including the firmware modifications needed to make this happen on your own ROBO. Sorry I could have gone more in depth with this post but I don't have much extra time on my hands. So this is just the preview for now ;)

    Let me know what you think!
     
  2. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Have you thought of porting your code to the latest version of Marlin 1.0.3.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
     
    Austin likes this.
  3. allted

    allted New Member

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    Austin likes this.
  4. Austin

    Austin Team ROBO 3D
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    Definitely possible! Takes just a little tweaking in Marlin_main.cpp. The rest is just importing some extra libraries. I'm hoping I have time to document it all soon! It should be a simple copy paste process once it's laid out.

    This MOD would look pretty nice on your "Beast"! I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I got it organized.

    haha I second that vote! But seriously I'm down to put some real kits together if there is a nice demand. The LED strip driver i'm using is the only real cost aside from the 12v RGB LED Strips. I'm sure we can find a better deal than what I was getting on them even though it was pretty cheap anyway. Find some good length jumper wires and were set! The coding was the hardest part for sure but now that it's pretty much done it's just plug and play once you have your components. We should definitely talk about this!

    ON THAT NOTE: If anyone else is interested just let it be known and i'll be sure to let you know as soon as it's available.
     
  5. robert sanchez

    robert sanchez Active Member

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    Awesome!!!!!
     
  6. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    This is epic
     
    Austin likes this.
  7. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    How hard would it be to modify this project to work with the Mostly Printed CNC (and have it do similar light breathing at various RPM speeds/do some kind of fanfare lightshow when a program finishes)?
     
  8. Austin

    Austin Team ROBO 3D
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    I don't think it would be hard at all! Actually I believe it would be the same process because the Mostly Printed CNC runs on Marlin as well. Then we could easily pick and choose some interesting variables for the lights to reference. I was literally just discussing this with @allted I'm gonna try and work on getting the basic Library cleaned up so it's easier to understand for people who want to see what's going on in the code.

    Tutorial with basic firmware downloads very soon! Promise!
     
  9. Marquis Johnson

    Marquis Johnson Active Member

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