Lab 2 – Tree, LED, and Arduino

For this assignment, I used a miniature tree as the diffuser. I place all three LEDs onto the miniature tree while using leaves as background. I’ve taken the cross-fading code and added some personal flavor to it. By allowing the user to control the blue color while alternating the speed of fading through out the loops. There are a total of three different fading stages with varying speed. The outcome is not as ideal as some other types of diffuser that will actually allow you to see the fading and the mixing of colors. But I wanted to see how the LED lights would look on a miniature tree and see if it can resemble a christmas tree.

Components:

  • Arduino Uno
  • Breadboard
  • 3 LEDs (rgb)
  • 3 220Ω Resistors
  • jumper wires
  • USB cable
  • laptop

 

Code:

/*
* Code for cross-fading 3 LEDs, red, green and blue, or one tri-color LED, using PWM
* The program cross-fades slowly from red to green, green to blue, and blue to red
* The debugging code assumes Arduino 0004, as it uses the new Serial.begin()-style functions
* Clay Shirky
*/

char b_input[100];
int b_value = 0;

// Output
int redPin = 11; // Red LED, connected to digital pin 11
int greenPin = 9; // Green LED, connected to digital pin 9
int bluePin = 10; // Blue LED, connected to digital pin 10

// Program variables
int redVal = 255; // Variables to store the values to send to the pins
int greenVal = 255; // Initial values are Red full, Green and Blue off
int blueVal = 120;

int i = 0; // Loop counter
int wait = 50; // 50ms (.05 second) delay; shorten for faster fades
int DEBUG = 1; // DEBUG counter; if set to 1, will write values back via serial

void setup()
{
pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT); // sets the pins as output
pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bluePin, OUTPUT); // If we want to see the pin values for debugging...
Serial.begin(9600); // ...set up the serial ouput on 0004 style
Serial.println("just continue to send me b");

}

// Main program
void loop()
{
i += 20; // Increment counter
if (i < 255) // First phase of fades { greenVal += 1; // Green up redVal = 1; // Red low blueVal += 1; // Blue up } else if (i < 509) // Second phase of fades { greenVal -= 5; // Green down redVal += 5; // red up blueVal -= 5; // Blue up } else if (i < 763) // Third phase of fades { greenVal = 10; // Green low redVal -= 10; // Red down blueVal += 10; // Blue up } else // Re-set the counter, and start the fades again { i = 1; } memset(b_input, 0, 100); readSerialString(b_input); if(b_input[0] == 'b'){ b_value = b_value + 1; Serial.println(b_value); } if (b_value == 13) { b_value = 0; } analogWrite(redPin, redVal); // Write current values to LED pins analogWrite(greenPin, greenVal); analogWrite(bluePin, blueVal + b_value*20); // if (DEBUG) { // If we want to read the output // DEBUG += 1; // Increment the DEBUG counter // if (DEBUG > 10) // Print every 10 loops
// {
// DEBUG = 1; // Reset the counter
//
// Serial.print(i); // Serial commands in 0004 style
// Serial.print("\t"); // Print a tab
// Serial.print("R:"); // Indicate that output is red value
// Serial.print(redVal); // Print red value
// Serial.print("\t"); // Print a tab
// Serial.print("G:"); // Repeat for green and blue...
// Serial.print(greenVal);
// Serial.print("\t");
// Serial.print("B:");
// Serial.println(blueVal); // println, to end with a carriage return
// }
// }
delay(wait); // Pause for 'wait' milliseconds before resuming the loop
}

void readSerialString (char *strArray) {
int i = 0;
if(!Serial.available()) {
return;
}
while (Serial.available()) {
strArray[i] = Serial.read();
//Serial.print(strArray);
i++;
}
}

Video:

Tree & LED