LPD8806 LEDs....

[Jdmagoo]

How does one connect these to the jdrones IO board? I have the mav2hott firmware installed and working (although there is a bug in the position and bearing/distance to home) but I'm not sure how to connect the LEDs to the board. Wanting to use Menno's code to display the various states of Autoquad, but not sure where the two terminals (DO and CO or DI and CO) goes?

[joebar.rc]

[Jdmagoo]

So just to be clear, when you say connect pin 2 and pin 3, im assuming these are the pins numbered 1 to 5 on the opposite end to the FTDI headers? If so, does the DI get connected to the positive part of pin 2 or the negative?

If I have 4 groups of 8 leds (2 groups for front two arms and 2 groups for rear two arms) I would have the front two groups connected to pins 2 and 3 but what pins would I have the rear two groups connected too?

Also, I plan to power the LEDs from a 5v ubec can you foresee any issues with this?

I have ordered the LEDs from adafruit so I hope these wont cause to many issues.

Thanks for your help

James

[joebar.rc]

Hi James,

On the Jdrones board the extra ports are a bit limited, I dont have it in front of me but I believe a couple of 'D' ports are available, numbers 5 to 7.
One of those is already defined for the HoTT telemetry if you use that, so that leaves at least 2.
What you can do is enter those numbers in the rgbleds.ino file (cant mis, I commented it with dataline and clockline)
And the ldp8806 dont work as 'standard' leds, it is using a communication bus (CI/CO DI/DO)
So, what you can do is divide a strip in 2 equal parts, lets say a strip with 8 leds and divide that in 2. The datalines need however be connected, so the DO/CO goes to the DI/CI on the second strip.
The first part for example on the frontarms, the leds 5-8 on the aft arms.'
You have to define the number of leds and groups in the code, I just made an example how I use it but if you look in the code you probably get the idea.
It is possible to also control the other arms separately but I did not write that in the code.
What I did is connect the second set (of 2 x 4 leds) parallel to the first set.
So, dont use the specific led outputs of the jdrones, those use a high voltage driver but instead use the other available digital ports on the board.

5V bec is no problem, I'm using that too. With all white leds it uses about 200mA with 16 leds, with other colors less..

Menno

[Jdmagoo]

Thanks for the detailed reply!!

I can only see D5 and D6 on the jdrones board, and you are right I am using D5 for the telemetry.
Anyway, can you see a problem in purchasing a second IO board and using that concurrently with the one I have? Is there a different type of board that has more digital outputs? Or should I just stick with the jdrones?
Would the led code in the AQ firmware do the same thing or is that just for analog LEDs? I can imagine its the later as there's only one data pin per header.

Thanks again for the response

[joebar.rc]

[Jdmagoo]

Thanks again for your reply,

I have ordered an arduino mini from my local shop which I will try and use for both the LEDs and the mav2hott. It was very cheap so I'm not to fussed about the extra coin. Hopefully using the arduino mini will solve the couple of bugs I have in the mav2hott code? Or do you think that's from the latest firmware for both the MX20 and GR24?

[joebar.rc]

[Jdmagoo]

Ok i have received the mini and can confirm the position bug is still there, i have changed the code to what was posted in the other thread and the position is still inaccurate. I believe its because im in the southern hemisphere and the position reported on the Transmiter is N394...... Also the bearing and distance to home doesnt work.

Finally the later firmware releases 6.7 and above seem to report via mav2hott that the speed is anywhere between 14 to 256kmph, at first i thought it was occurring because of a poor GPS signal however even with a 3D lock the speed was still been reported as 14kmph even though its on my bench. When i downgrade back to 6.6.1 the reported speed is stable. Was something changed in the mav code with the higher firmware version?

[Max]