Hyperion hypercon problem no green and white lights

    Quote from harun-cuk17

    US $0.27 9％ Off | IIC I2C Logic Level Converter Bi-Directional Module 5V to 3.3V For Arduino

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    I got now this one at home. Is this one also fine?

    Probably not, but you can give it a try if you already got one.

    These converters are mainly useful for slower stuff (ike I2C), to get clean signals for higher speed (SPI) stuff use a 74HCTxx chip.

    so long,

    Hias

    Sorry, I somehow missed that you already got an Arduino Uno at home.

    In that case just give it a try, just remember that you have to set the baudrate to 115200 which will limit the number of LEDs and the update rate - about 100 LEDs at 25Hz update rate should work though (haven't tested that myself though).

    The ATmega 32u4 based Arduinos don't have that limitation, this is why I generally recommend using them (esp when buying new it doesn't make much sense to spend money on the older Arduinos, like the uno).

    Concerning the level shifter: without knowing specific details about the used level shifter it's hard to tell if it'll work or not. Most of the level shifters in the form-factor are passive ones with pull-up resistors and while they may work they are neither recommended nor guaranteed to work for this specific application (unidirectional up-shifting of >= 1MHz signals from 3.3V to 5V).

    As the issues can be very subtle and hard to track down ("mostly" or "sometimes" working etc) I generally advise against using such improper approaches.

    so long,

    Hias

    Many thanks for your reply. I will check if it could work or not.

    My question now is: is it better to use an arduino or not? I mean if the ambilight is working without arduino and level shifter like now with the pi3 what I got now, is that better?

    I mean even it is working correctly is it still better with an arduino?


    many thanks

    If RPi4 plus level shifter works fine then go for it - both Arduino and GPIO connection plus level shifter should work pretty much the same.

    The main reason I'm using an Arduino here is because I have an audio card plugged in which needs SPI - so I can't use the GPIO connection method.

    so long,

    Hias

    HiassofT,

    So today I tested 3 more rpi4 with ambilight. I put the most recent image on it: 9.2.0

    Here are the facts:

    With all the 3 pi I got the rainbow effect

    Also got green lights when I opened an soccer game

    Also got white lights when the sidesin the video was white

    The image I tested: RED GREEN BLUE WHITE

    RED worked

    Blue Worked

    Still the white and green image does not worked. You see it is opening the lights and then closing. I made an video of it.

    see this link for the video files I made:

    https://we.tl/t-glnavq2f4c

    So my question to you is: Could you test the images I sent to you again without the arduino? Because I am thinking the arduino complete the green and white light. Because we tried everything but no effect. So in totally 4 pi's tested.

    It is very weird that green and white is working in an movie or soccer game but not in the pictures area. To know this issue I could only say that you could try it without the arduino. Perhaps the green and white lights is then also not working by you.

    I hope you will get results with this.

    Many thanks

    Edited once, last by harun-cuk17 (November 28, 2019 at 12:14 AM).

    Just tested with your images, everything fine here.

    Watching your video rang a bell, though, I remembered having a very similar issue back then when I first tested my LED strip but was using a power supply with too low power rating. If I raised the LED brightness beyond a certain point the strip would just shut off completely. This was most easily to reproduce with white light (as this means all three R/G/B LEDs are active at the same time).

    Not sure why that also happens with green and why it was OK on the RPi3, but as it's rather easy to test and would provide some interesting datapoint please give it a try:

    Start up hypercon, connect to libreelec and then pick white on the color-wheel. Then change the brightness (on the vertical slider to the right) and check if the LEDs turn black at some point. Checking with other colors (yellow, green etc) may also be interesting.

    so long,

    Hias

    But did you test the images without the arduino micro?


    i think without the arduino you will also get problems.

    I could test it from the colorwheel of course.

    But why i have green and white if I watch movie? That is weird.

    So long

    No, I haven't tested without the Arduino. Can't easily do that as LED strip and arduino are all attached behind my wall-mounted TV.

    I wouldn't rule out there's some problem with direct attachment, but as I said I can't really check myself.

    so long,

    Hias

    Quote from HiassofT

    No, I haven't tested without the Arduino. Can't easily do that as LED strip and arduino are all attached behind my wall-mounted TV.

    I wouldn't rule out there's some problem with direct attachment, but as I said I can't really check myself.

    so long,

    Hias

    Hi,


    i test it again. When I reboot the pi4 i get no picture. The tv is saying no signal.

    Even when I plug the hdmi cable in an another hdmi port it is the same trouble.

    Hias, Thanks for all the great assistance here!

    I just set up a Rpi 4 following your instructions and I got to this point. I'm having the same issue with Green and White coming on briefly then fading out when looking at the test pictures.

    I did what you said with the color wheel and was not able to replicate the problem. All the colors cam on as expected and stayed on.

    Any additional thoughts would be great. Thanks.

    Edit: I figured it out. It's not perfect but it is a lot better! I had to make adjustments to the grabber parameters. Increasing the Height and width to 100, and interval to 50ms. There is still a strange delay sometimes that happens when looking at the test images. For example solid Red, the sides will light up right away, then a few seconds later the top will illuminate. It's weird but doesn't seem to be an issue with moving pictures.

    Thanks again for your guidance here!

    Edited once, last by PJ12 (March 19, 2020 at 2:47 AM).