TwinkleFOX: new Color Twinkles for 2015 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqCaF1bD4Uk Code: https://gist.github.com/kriegsman/756ea6dcae8e30845b5a A year ago,

Cool, thanks. That seeTheRainbow is from many moons ago. I’ll look forward
to the updates.

I figured out my problem, and it works now, but I want just a bit more color. I set DENSITY to be 8, but I changed my background color just a bit to be a brighter warm white, which I like. However, it seems like only about 25% of the leds are twinkling at a time, and I want to make that closer to 40% or so.

Also, since it’s possible to change the background color, how would one nblend8() back to the background color to avoid the pop to background color? I tried it a couple of ways, but nothing works just right.

Thanks though, this is pretty cool.

The background blend is coming… (Great minds thing alike…)

Oh you flatterer you…

@Mark_Kriegsman So I finally got some more boards in to play with, and tried this one out, only to get this error:
‘EVERY_N_SECONDS’ was not declared in this scope

I checked for a misspelling or something…the only thing I changed was the pin number…

am I just a moron?

M

ok…maybe I’m a moron…4th try worked…had to install the new library and delete the old one manually…1.6.6 kept choking on trying to load FastLED-3.1…but if I just dragged it in to the proper folder it worked…

UPDATED with all “tweaks” integrated:

  • uses the very latest pixel set iterators. You must check out the latest FastLED library from github to use this.
  • better attack/decay dynamics,
  • option to ‘fade redishly, like incandescent’ (default),
  • smoother fading to/from the background color,
  • ability to auto-select a background color
  • vintage “C9” tree light color palette
  • uses built-in power controls (eg, limit to 4 amps @ 12v)
    The comments are all in-line, and should give enough into to start playing around with the parameters.

Same URL for the new code: https://gist.github.com/kriegsman/756ea6dcae8e30845b5a

Enjoy!

@Michael_Sime : that’s odd. If you revert the pin number does the code compile again? (even if it doesn’t then run correctly)

@Michael_Sime : glad you got it working!

thouest rosckest…I cranked the speed up to 11, density 5, and zapped all the pallets except for the green/red/blue and THEN just made it all green with ONE iteration of red, and I’ll be durned iffin’ it don’t look just like that video we saw of a for-realz server farm! now I just need to pipe it into some of my servers when they come back from set (gotta love building a set like that on the last day before hiatus…won’t see them back until 1/4)…and now to try the latest update from friend Mark! THANKS!

uh-oh…on the latest update I get this:
‘CRGBArray’ does not name a type

Yeah – you need the very latest FastLED from github. It’s not a “release” yet - you have to just download the latest source tree. Quit the Arduino IDE, delete the old FastLED library, download the latest via git or from https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED/archive/master.zip , expand the archive, rename it from FastLED-master to just FastLED, put it in your Arduino/Libraries directory, and start up the Arduino IDE. Let me know if that doesn’t work.

ahhh more gooder…
but ya know, the more I stare at it, the more I realize that it’s a repeating pattern, and not really random…it kinda FEELS random, and sure do look like activity lights, but yeah, I see repeating patterns there…or am I supposed to?

@Mark_Kriegsman ​ i’ve spent the last few nights tinkering with last years twinkle and timed performances, and once it was on the house the wife asked for background color… I’d just finished digging the hole under the decking, when you post this.

Thank you for saving me from 20 years of incarceration at her majestys pleasure!

Also what libation helped this come into being, i need to drink lots of it. Zero bytes ram for the win!

@Michael_Sime : there are 16 blink speeds and 65536 random offsets. So there are patterns, but not a lot of them. I’ll see if I can make a special version for you that looks even more random.

Cool, need to get the Photon version updated, but that shouldn’t be too much work. This will be fun to do instead of working today.

@Michael_Sime try http://pastebin.com/3uTGGnKV … and now I’m off to MY day job!

@Mark_Kriegsman NICE! did speed 7, density 9 with the holly pallete & looks good! Definitely feels more random, but again, if you stare at it, you see the repeat…

I wonder if it’s also a cause of the sketch looking to jump to the next pallete and not truly looping? I seem to perceive a hesitation & cycle point…

So at this point I don’t think there’s an overall repeat that a human can see. Each LIGHT totally repeats. But allow them? Probably not.

How many pixels in each server panel?

Does this latest update require a newer version of the Arduino IDE? I’m using 1.6.3 along with a ‘just downloaded’ copy of FastLED from the Master and when I tried to compile for a Nano on a Win 8.1 machine, I received the following error:

twinklefox.ino:179:21: error: range-based ‘for’ loops are not allowed in C++98 mode

SOLVED by reading and implementing this article: