Which BlinkStick should I buy

Support
#1

Hi, I am trying to use a blinkstick to turn a LED ring on and off. I do not need to address color at all, only to tuen on and off. If I could fade up and fade down that would be a bonus. These are the type of LED rings I am trying to control: https://www.oznium.com/led-angel-eyes . I will be controlling from a mac, or linux machine.

Please point me in the right direction as to hardware and tutorials.

Thanks,

JM

#2

You need BlinkStick Pro with LED adapter. According to the link you have sent, you should be able to connect 3 LED rings and control them individually. Very simple to connect: both positive terminals on the LED rings go to VCC on the adapter and negative terminals go to one of R, G or B channels. Then you can plug in a standard 12V power supply with 2.1mm barrel and you should be ready to control the rings and dim them.

As far as software is concerned, it’s almost the same on all API implementations:

  1. Find BlinkStick connected to the computer as object [led]
  2. Call led.set_color(r, g, b) function

That’s pretty much it! So if you connect your rings to R and G channels, you can set values 0 to 255 to dim them from completely off to fully on.

#3

Hardware Ordered!

Can I call these functions via Api, or only via the application you supply? If so what is the most robust method to use on a mac system?

Thanks,

Jaime

#4

On Mac you can use Node.js, Python, Mono and Client application. Which is your favorite programming language?

#5

@arvydas,

I have my Blinkstick Pro now. I have wired it up as suggested and am using the mac application to test. However, I am not seeing the Blinkstick show up. How do I know if it is functioning correctly?

I have installed the BlinkStickClient-2.0-rc9.pkg and MonoFramework-MDK-4.4.2.11.macos10.xamarin.universal.pkg on an iMac running 10.11.6

Thanks,

JM

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#6

OK, not sure why but the Blinkstick Pro is recognized on my MacBook running El Capitan. However I still cannot get the LED ring to light up. I have it connected to the Green channel and am trying to get it to run via Python script. I have separately tested the power supply and the LED ring so i know they work, however I cannot get them to light at all via Blinkstick. Any advice @arvydas?

This is the ring I am running: https://www.oznium.com/thin-angel-eyes

#7

Hey Jamie,

please keep sure you have the (+) wire connected to the VCC. It looks like you´ve connected the black wire to VCC, black is normally (-). But I don´t know how the ring uses this colors.
If it is connected correctly, please show your python script also.

#8

Hey @p0ke,

I have verified that the black lined wire is + on this LED ring. I was trying to get the Ring to light up using the BlinkStick client as well as directly using python scripts. In the interest of time - as I am a novice - would you be able to post a sample that should light up the ring connected to the G channel of the BlinkstickPro controller?

Or is there anything I can do with the client which would light it up? I’m starting to think something might be broken.

Thanks,

JM

#9

Hey Jamie,

I think I cannot give a better description than Arvydas had given in his first post. I never tried a LED device with a simple on/off. But it should simply be:

  • Black wire to VCC
  • Red wire to G
    In the BlinkStick Client or the python script you should switch the color to green and you should see a reaction on your LED ring.
    You can also try the following:
  • Red wire to GND
  • Black wire to G

I fear this is any help I can give at the moment…

#10

A few ideas to consider:

  • Do you have a basic voltmeter to test the the power supply is working?
  • Have you tested your LED ring to make sure it works directly from the power supply?
  • Did you try switching to a different channel?
#11

Hello.

I do not have a voltmeter with me. I have tested both the ring and the power supply separately and they are functioning fine. I have not tried a different channel - don’t have a small enough screwdriver to change at the moment.

One think I noticed, when I run

blinkstick -i

I get the following response:

Found device:
Manufacturer:  Agile Innovative Ltd
Description:   BlinkStick
Serial:        BS006580-2.2
Current Color: #008000
Mode:          0
LEDs:          unsupported
Info Block 1:  BSP1
Info Block 2:

Does that look correct? I see that it is set to green - is there another command I can send to turn it on and light it up? I tried to run the following and nothing happens

sudo blinkstick --pulse --duration=100 --set-color=GREEN

Thanks.

#12

That all looks correct. Please try a different channel when you have a chance and let me know if the LED ring lights up. You can run the following command too:

sudo blinkstick green

To turn on the channel instantly.

Also worth checking if the power supply connector makes contact with the BlinkStick LED adapter, but you would need a voltmeter to check on the other side of the board on the socket contacts. Is it 2.1mm barrel?

#13

That last command did not do it, still no lights. Will test with voltmeter when back at my workbench this afternoon.

Is there any command to know whether the LED adapter board is being recognized? Is that what the unsupported line means in the -i report?

Thanks,

Jaime

#14

@jaime when you run -i and get the report, it means that the device is recognized.

Unsupported for LEDs means that there is no fixed number of LEDs for the device and can be anything from 1 to 64 on each channel. This is for individually addressable LEDs. For example, BlinkStick Flex returns 32 for this value.

#15

I pulled it all apart and started again. Got it working with a different LED strip, not sure why the ring stopped working.

THanks for your help. One last question, is there a command line command I can send to turn it off. Right now it can pulse and blink but I don’t seem to have control over brightness limit or a method for setting it to off.

JM

#16

@jaime glad to hear you got it sorted!

To turn off, just use “black” color:

blinkstick black

To control brightness (assuming you are on the green channel) just set the hex color value of the channel to anything from 0 to 255 in decimal, but you have to supply hex values from 00 to FF. For example:

blinkstick #001000 - sets to hex 10 or decimal 16
blinkstick #008000 - sets half brightness to hex 80 or decimal 128
blinkstick #00FF00 - sets full brightness to decimal 255

You may need to add backslash before # char depending on the shell you are using, so it’s more like:

blinkstick \#00A000