Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

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evan.paster
 
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Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2013 3:41 pm

Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

Post by evan.paster »

HI all,

Strange problem. I just finished sewing in 4 led Neo pixels and connecting them to a flora board. I have VBATT as (+) D6 as the arrows and grd as (-) connections to the neopixels. When I tried this with one neopixel with alligator clips, the LED turned on. However, now that i've sewed them in with conductive thread and there are four of them, none of them turn on.

I have NO upload error when I use the ardunio library.

I'm going to England in four days! any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Evan

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pburgess
 
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Re: Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

Post by pburgess »

Hi Evan,

Might just be a wonky connection. Try connecting first NeoPixel to the Flora using the alligator clips (you can keep the thread in place). If that works, add clips to the second, and so forth.

If none of this works, possibly a short somewhere along the line. Does the power LED on the Flora turn on? Also, if the above doesn't work, could you post photos that clearly show the overall circuit and connections? We'll take a look for gremlins.

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evan.paster
 
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Re: Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

Post by evan.paster »

Hi,

Sooo... after I wrote the post, I kept uploading various different 'examples' and I got the flora test to work, except that the lights did not rotate color sequence. The 1st 3 were blue and the last one was white. I unplugged the usb cable and plugged it back in - but the lights would not turn back on!

So even crazier - when I connect the alligator clips, I get the LAST light to turn on but the first 3 LEDs (including the one to which the clips are connected!) also the light is not sequencing the available colors - it's stuck on a solid yellow

YOU ALL ARE AWESOME - THANK YOU FOR ACTUALLY REPLYING. This is the first time I've used your boards and the first time I"m using electronics as sewables with my costume.

Evan

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evan.paster
 
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Re: Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

Post by evan.paster »

Sorry, it's gotten even stranger.

When i removed the alligator clips, the last light in the sequence stay on!
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pburgess
 
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Re: Neo pixels won't turn on with my adafruit Flora

Post by pburgess »

Looks like the 'in' and 'out' ends of each pixel are connected, is that correct? If so, you'll want to snip those. The thread should go from D6 to the input of the first pixel, stop there, then another thread from the output of that pixel to the input of the next, and so forth.

Also, I suspect it's just a parallax thing, but it looks like D6 and GND are awful close...make sure they aren't touching.

Once we get the connections sorted out, you may want to beef up the +V and GND lines with extra threads...see the Pac Man suspenders tutorial for an example.

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