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neopixel-gui install guide

Guide to installing the neopixel gui application.

Hardware requirements

WARNING: Read carefully before connecting Neopixels to your Raspberry Pi

The neopixel gui application is designed for use with a Raspberry Pi. It controls a strip of RGB LEDs with integrated controller IC such as WS2811 or WS2812. Adafruit products are named NeoPixels, but other suppliers may refer to these as RGB LEDs, WS2811, WS2812 or WS281x LEDs.

It should work with all current versions of the Raspberry Pi. It is recommended that the version of the neopixel library is installed from the link provided in this guide earlier versions of the library do not work with the Raspberry Pi 2.

Using the neopixel libarary the neopixels can be driven from the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector. It needs to use PWM which is available on GPIO pin 18 (physically pin 12 on the board).

The GPIO port works at 3.3V, but to run Neopixels at full brightness requires a 5v power supply and as a result a 5V data signal. This needs a voltage level shifter circuit to convert the 3.3V output from the Raspberry Pi to 5V.

I used a MyPifi Neopixel board for testing the software.

I have also tested this using a simple MOSFET switch circuit using a 2N7000 MOS-FET.

Raspberry Pi with Raspbian

These instructions are based on Raspbian Jesse using the November 2015 version of NOOBS. It should work with any recent version of Raspbian.

Download the latest version of NOOBS

Pre-requisites

The software is written for Python version 3 and needs the NeoPixel library to be installed for Python 3. To work with the Raspberry Pi then the updated version of the NeoPixel needs to be installed (this can be installed on the older Raspberry Pi as well).

First install the developer libraries using sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev python3-dev git scons swig

(this includes the Python 2 developer libraries which are not required but are useful to install anyway)

Download the neopixel code from github git clone https://github.com/jgarff/rpi_ws281x.git

cd rpi_ws281x
checkout rpi2
scons

Change to the python directory

cd python

Install the Python 3 library file using

sudo python3 setup.py install

If you also want to use the library with Python 2 you can also install using

sudo python setup.py install

(this last step is not required for this software, but may be useful if you install any other Neopixel software that uses Python version 2).

Install the Neopixel GUI software

Download the latest stable version from

PenguinTutor.com

Change to the /home/pi directory and install using tar -xvzf neopixelgui-versionnumber.tar.gz

Or for the latest version (which may have more bugs) install the software from git using

git clone https://github.com/penguintutor/neopixel-gui.git neopixel

you can now run the command using

cd neopixel
gksudo python3 rpnpg.py

To add to a new DJ Start Menu use:

startmenu/setupmenu.sh

gksudo warning message

When first running you will get a warning message that the application is running with super user privileges without asking for a password. "Granted permission without asking for password". This is required to be able to access the GPIO ports on the Raspberry Pi. If you tick the "Do not display this message again" box then you will not be warned of this again in future.

Initial configuration

Once the application is running choose the Config option to set the number of LEDs in your Neopixel LED strip.

Corrupt configuration file

If your configuration file has become corrupted, or you have chosen an invalid GPIO port number then the application may not start. In that case delete the file rpnpgp.cfg from the neopixel directory. The application should then start normally and you will be able to create a new configuration using the config option.

In rare circumstances you may also need to reboot the computer (or if you know what you are doing kill the existing rpnpngp processes), but that is not normally required.

Upgrade instructions

If you installed the software from git then you can update to the latest version at any time by changing into the neopixel folder and issuing

git pull

Please make sure you check the README.md file in case of any major changes to the configuration.

If you downloaded the package from PenguinTutor.com then check there for a new version and any upgrade instructions.