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12. Controlling APA102 LEDs

APA102 LEDs, also known as DotStar LEDs, are individually addressable full-colour RGB LEDs, generally in a string formation. They differ from NeoPixels in that they require two pins to control - both a Clock and Data pin. They can operate at a much higher data and PWM frequencies than NeoPixels and are more suitable for persistence-of-vision effects.

To create an APA102 object do the following:

>>> import machine, apa102
>>> strip = apa102.APA102(machine.Pin(5), machine.Pin(4), 60)

This configures an 60 pixel APA102 strip with clock on GPIO5 and data on GPIO4. You can adjust the pin numbers and the number of pixels to suit your needs.

The RGB colour data, as well as a brightness level, is sent to the APA102 in a certain order. Usually this is (Red, Green, Blue, Brightness). If you are using one of the newer APA102C LEDs the green and blue are swapped, so the order is (Red, Blue, Green, Brightness). The APA102 has more of a square lens while the APA102C has more of a round one. If you are using a APA102C strip and would prefer to provide colours in RGB order instead of RBG, you can customise the tuple colour order like so:

>>> strip.ORDER = (0, 2, 1, 3)

To set the colour of pixels use:

>>> strip[0] = (255, 255, 255, 31) # set to white, full brightness
>>> strip[1] = (255, 0, 0, 31) # set to red, full brightness
>>> strip[2] = (0, 255, 0, 15) # set to green, half brightness
>>> strip[3] = (0, 0, 255, 7)  # set to blue, quarter brightness

Use the write() method to output the colours to the LEDs:

>>> strip.write()

Demonstration:

import time
import machine, apa102

# 1M strip with 60 LEDs
strip = apa102.APA102(machine.Pin(5), machine.Pin(4), 60)

brightness = 1  # 0 is off, 1 is dim, 31 is max

# Helper for converting 0-255 offset to a colour tuple
def wheel(offset, brightness):
    # The colours are a transition r - g - b - back to r
    offset = 255 - offset
    if offset < 85:
        return (255 - offset * 3, 0, offset * 3, brightness)
    if offset < 170:
        offset -= 85
        return (0, offset * 3, 255 - offset * 3, brightness)
    offset -= 170
    return (offset * 3, 255 - offset * 3, 0, brightness)

# Demo 1: RGB RGB RGB
red = 0xff0000
green = red >> 8
blue = red >> 16
for i in range(strip.n):
    colour = red >> (i % 3) * 8
    strip[i] = ((colour & red) >> 16, (colour & green) >> 8, (colour & blue), brightness)
strip.write()

# Demo 2: Show all colours of the rainbow
for i in range(strip.n):
    strip[i] = wheel((i * 256 // strip.n) % 255, brightness)
strip.write()

# Demo 3: Fade all pixels together through rainbow colours, offset each pixel
for r in range(5):
    for n in range(256):
        for i in range(strip.n):
            strip[i] = wheel(((i * 256 // strip.n) + n) & 255, brightness)
        strip.write()
    time.sleep_ms(25)

# Demo 4: Same colour, different brightness levels
for b in range(31,-1,-1):
    strip[0] = (255, 153, 0, b)
    strip.write()
    time.sleep_ms(250)

# End: Turn off all the LEDs
strip.fill((0, 0, 0, 0))
strip.write()