Blinksy Quickstart: 3D Grid 🌈

Get started with Blinksy LED control using a Gledopto GL-C-016WL-D controller and a Treedix 3D volumetric cube

blinksy-quickstart-3d-grid.1080p.mp4

The initial project is setup to run a scrolling rainbow on a 5x5x5 WS2812B cube.

(If you want to start with a 1D LED rope instead, see blinksy-quickstart-1d-rope).

Bill of Materials

To get started now, buy:

• Gledopto GL-C-016WL-D: AliExpress, Amazon
• Treedix 3D Volumetric Cube: Treedix.com, Amazon
• A BTF-LIGHTING 5V power supply: AliExpress
  • Power usage depends on brightness and patterns: 5V 3A should be more than enough for 5x5x5, but more LEDs could use 5V 10A. Please read the QuinLED power usage guide before blowing up your power supply. Blinksy does not protect you here, yet.

If you need a general LED supplier recommendation, I've only had success with "BTF-Lighting". You can find them on AliExpress, Amazon, or on their own website.

If you need more help with LED hardware, look at QuinLED's helpful guides.

How Blinksy works

• Define your LED layout in 1D, 2D, or 3D space
• Create your visual pattern (effect), or choose from our built-in patterns library
  • The pattern will compute colors for each LED based on its position
• Setup a driver to send each frame of colors to your LEDs, using our built-in drivers library.

Development

Pre-requisites

• Install Rust with rustup
• Install just

cargo install just

• Install espup

cargo install espup@'^0.15' --locked
espup install

• Install espflash

cargo install espflash@'^4' --locked

• On Linux, add user to dialout group (or uucp on Arch)

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER

• Source the ESP environment variables

. $HOME/export-esp.sh

CH341 Driver

The Gledopto board has a CH341 USB-to-serial converter, to help your computer talk to the board.

This should work out-of-the-box with Linux, but for MacOS and Windows you will need to install a driver.

MacOS

On MacOS, install CH341 driver

See "MacOS" section of Sparkfun guide for more details.

Windows

On Windows, install CH341 driver

See "Windows 7/10" section of Sparkfun guide for more details.

USB Cable

For some reason, there's been issues with people using a USB-C to USB-C cable to plug into the Gledopto.

If you only have USB-C outputs, try a USB-C-to-USB-A dongle, then a USB-A to USB-C cable.

🤷

Run on microcontroller

just mcu

Simulate on desktop

just desktop

Resources

• blinksy: Rust no-std no-alloc LED control library for 1D, 2D, and 3D LED setups
• gledopto: Board support crate for Gledopto ESP32 Digital LED controllers

As the Gledopto controller is an ESP32, here are some more ESP resources to help:

• The Rust on ESP Book: An overall guide on ESP32 on Rust
• esp-hal: The Hardware Abstraction Layer for an ESP32 on Rust
• espup: How to install the Xtensa target for Rust, required for ESP32
• esp-generate: A template to help you kickstart your project

And in case they are helpful:

• ESP no-std book
• ESP no-std examples
• Gledopto GL-C-016WL-D page
• Gledopto GL-C-016WL-D user instructions

License

^{Licensed under either of Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT license at your option.}