07 Colors and Effects
Each parking zone, and standby mode, can be set to a different color, selected from a predefined list. A future version may add colors or allow you to enter RGB values to define your own colors, but currently the following colors are available:
- Red
- Yellow
- Green
- Blue
- White
- Pink
- Orange
- Lime
- Cyan
- Grey (really a different shade of white)
You can use a color in more than one zone, or each zone (including the standby color) can have its own color. Just a note that some colors, especially white, will draw more current than others. If you plan on running a color like white at high brightness levels, assure your power supply can supply the needed current. In addition, you may need to wire a separate 5V line to the LEDs to avoid running too much current through the controller board.
See the blog article on building the parking assistant for more information on wiring the system, use of power supplies and alternate wiring for large numbers of LEDs or using higher current.
Effects are only applicable to the active parking zone. But in this zone, the effect uses the LEDs as indicators to show the vehicle approaching the final parking spot (parked zone). These are a bit difficult to represent in images alone, but you can see them in the related YouTube video... or simply try out the different effects yourself to see which one meets your needs the best. Again, you can specify any of the listed colors for the effect, not just what is shown in the images. For most effects, the sensitivity of the individual pixels is based on the both the total number of pixels and the distance of the active zone... the smaller the zone, the greater the sensititive (see the wiki section on Understanding the Parking Zones for more information)
Out-In
With this effect, the outermost pixels on each end light up when the vehicle first enters the active zone. Successive pixels light up towards the center as the vehicle approaches the parked zone, meeting in the middle just before hitting the parked zone.
In-Out
This is basically the opposite of 'Out-In'. The LEDs start in the middle and move towards the outside edges as the vehicle approaches the parked zone.
Full-Strip
This effect uses the entire LED strip, staring with lighting up the pixel closes to the 'wired' end of the LEDs and lighting up pixels towards the opposite end with the entire strip lit just prior to entering the parked zone. Note that since this effect (and its reversed opposite below) uses the all the pixels instead half on each end like the previous two effects, sensitivity will basically be doubled for the same given active zone distance.
Full-Strip-Inv
As you might guess, this is just the opposite of the previous Full-Strip effect where the LEDs begin at the 'non-wired' end of the LED strip and light up in series as the car approaches the parked zone.
The full strip effects might be useful in a situation where you need to mount your LED strip vertically instead of horizontally due to limited mounting space on the wall.
Solid
This really isn't an effect, but will simply turn the entire LED strip on in the color specified in the settings. The strip remains this color until the vehicle enters the parked zone. There is no indication or change as the car moves through the active zone.. the strip just remains solid through the entire active zone. Think of it more like a stoplight effect. Probably not very useful, but it is included in case you have a special use case and don't want any of the other 'countdown' style effects.
While the backup zone does not have an effect you can define, if a vehicle (or other object) enters the backup zone, the lights will rapidly flash (about 2.5 times per second) in the color you specify in the settings. The lights will continue to flash until the object leaves the backup zone or the active park time expires.
While you also can't define an effect, you can specify a color and brightness for the standby lights. The standby, or sleep, indicators are the outermost pixel on each end of the strip. When the parking system goes into standby mode (active and/or exit time has expired) all LEDs are turned off except for these two. Normally you would set this to a very low brighness (e.g. less than 10) to let you know the system is still "on", but in standby mode. If you wish to disable the standby display and turn off all pixels when the system is not active, set the Standby LED Brightness to 0 in the setings.