I would like to connect an LED strip to one of the PWM pins

Controllers Smoothie
,
1

I would like to connect an LED strip to one of the PWM pins on a Re-ARM board so I can turn the lights on and off through the printer interface.

I see on the Smoothieboard pinout that there are four LED pins at 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, and 1.21:
http://smoothieware.org/pinout

On the Re-ARM board, these pin numbers pass to servos 1, 2, 3, and 4 (although pin 1.21 is labeled as going to something called J5 on the Re-ARM pinout, but referring to the Mega and RAMPS pinouts, it seems to go to Servo 2):
http://panucattdevices.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/attachments/1047536701

I plan on turning on a certain pin number and I want to make sure I’m using an appropriate pin. Are these pins (1.18 - 1.21) good to use for turning on lights? Is there a better suited pin for this? I don’t plan on using the servo pins for anything else.

Thanks

2

I just use a fan of spare heater pin for my lights. Then I don’t have to mess with the board status LEDs.

3

You would need to turn of leds in the config. Then hook the pin to a mosfet, as the raw oin is just 3.3v and can only drive 5mA.

4

Maybe its better to find another pin. Although, it looks like the Re-ARM board doesn’t have LED status lights? Since it uses those pin numbers go to to the servo pins on the RAMPS? Although I had not thought about the voltage. The spare heater pin is probably best so I can get 12 volts directly out.

5

You can use any pin for anything you want ( mostly ). No need to use the LED pins, leave them alone doing their LED thing. See http://smoothieware.org/switch to control a pin using gcode.

6

I had not looked into the switch module before. Very versatile, thanks!