RGB emergency - Add support for RGB channel, and use button long press to toggle effect #13
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I've only got RGB LEDs 🎨 It was also an exercise in understanding how to do multi colour flash. Next I need to look at using the sequences, or adding a flashing RGB FX function
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Having played a bit more, it appears that replacing the effects property has not stopped the hazard effect correctly. Not got time to poke at it now, will revisit, but should probably pop instead. |
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https://youtu.be/xP5sYRU8vQA for a display of the behaviour. I swear when I first ran it there was a simple red/blue flash then after button held it went slow orange flash, and back to blue/red when button held again. Tested a few times. Since then two days have elapsed, one more random plugging in, and then moved upstairs to final spot for a bit of in-view testing. I'll check that I didn't refactor something on the device before raising an issue |
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Hi @tyeth, Thank you for this example! It's quite a nice addition to the simple
It's not over the top but it would perhaps be better to submit it as a standalone example, rather than modify the existing one, so others may also benefit from having the same starting point as you in the future. I'll submit some specific code comments after this.
I only tested with the onboard LED, but (255, 32, 0) looked pretty orange to me. Having that last component be zero is key as that's the blue channel, which orange is famous for not having any of 😆
This could perhaps be solved by a dedicated RGBFlashingFX 🤔
Thanks for that video. I am really not sure what is going on there. I've not had it happen yet in my quick testing here. I admit I never tried switching loaded effects on the fly as you have done, so there could well be an edge case happening where the old effect is still being held on to. If you do raise an issue, having a minimal code example that produces the issue would be very helpful for debugging. |
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| # Constants | ||
| EMERGENCY = COLOURS = [RED,RED,RED,RED,BLUE,BLUE,BLUE,BLUE] |
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EMERGENCY doesn't seem to be used anywhere?
| # Constants | ||
| EMERGENCY = COLOURS = [RED,RED,RED,RED,BLUE,BLUE,BLUE,BLUE] | ||
| EMERGENCY_BLINK_SPEED = 8 | ||
| ORANGE = (228,114,28) |
| # Variables | ||
| tiny = TinyFX() # Create a new TinyFX object to interact with the board | ||
| player = MonoPlayer(tiny.outputs) # Create a new effect player to control TinyFX's mono outputs | ||
| player = ColourPlayer(tiny.rgb) # Create a new effect player to control TinyFX's RGB output |
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colour_player for clarity?
| # Variables | ||
| tiny = TinyFX() # Create a new TinyFX object to interact with the board | ||
| player = MonoPlayer(tiny.outputs) # Create a new effect player to control TinyFX's mono outputs | ||
| player = ColourPlayer(tiny.rgb) # Create a new effect player to control TinyFX's RGB output | ||
| monoplayer = MonoPlayer(tiny.outputs) |
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mono_player for readability
| monoplayer = MonoPlayer(tiny.outputs) | ||
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| # Create and set up an red blue flashing effect to play, and a hazard one for later | ||
| rgbEffect = RGBBlinkFX(colour=COLOURS, # The colour (or colours to blink in sequence) |
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We tend to use snake case for our variable names, rather than camelCase. E.g. rgb_effect
| t = 0 # keep track of boot press duration | ||
| dont_exit_yet = True | ||
| while dont_exit_yet: | ||
| player.start() # Start the effects running |
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I think start() should be outside of the first while loop. I wonder if repeated calls to it without calling stop first is the cause of your problem 🤔
| player.start() # Start the effects running | ||
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| # Loop until the effect stops or the "Boot" button is pressed | ||
| while player.is_running() and not tiny.boot_pressed(): |
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The player is never stopped, so checking is_running() is unnecessary
| while player.is_running() and not tiny.boot_pressed(): | ||
| pass | ||
| t = time.ticks_ms() | ||
| while player.is_running() and tiny.boot_pressed(): |
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checking is_running() is unnecessary
| t = time.ticks_ms() | ||
| while player.is_running() and tiny.boot_pressed(): | ||
| pass | ||
| if time.ticks_ms() - t > 500: # long press - toggle effect |
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The more robust way to do this check is time.ticks_diff(time.ticks_ms(), t) > 500. See: https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/time.html#time.ticks_diff
Also, from my resting, I found having short press be effect switch, and long press be stop, felt like a better user experience
| while player.is_running() and tiny.boot_pressed(): | ||
| pass | ||
| if time.ticks_ms() - t > 500: # long press - toggle effect | ||
| player.effects = [hazardEffect] if player.effects[0] is rgbEffect else [rgbEffect] |
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I'm surprised this worked! player.effects may appear as a list but is actually two functions hidden by properties. As such there may be cases where effects[0] would not equal the effect your originally entered into it.
Perhaps a safer way would be to have a separate mode variable that you use to set the new effect and then toggle for the next time e.g. mode = not mode
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@tyeth Have you had chance to look at my comments on this? |
I've only got RGB LEDs 🎨 so this adds support for those, along with an orange hazard light mode if the boot button is long pressed rather than clicked.
The onboard RGB LED is also active so that's a nice touch (it's a lovely board - tinyfxw).
Maybe this is over the top, let me know, but it also serves as a useful example.
Also please do feel free to find a better orange, I randomly picked using browser dev tools and was totally unhappy with the result so starting abusing the rgb values 🤓
Note to self:
Next I need to look at understanding the sequence functions better (checkout flashing(0)), or adding an easier way of having flashing RGB FX functions