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Plasma: LED Sequencing

Plasma is an LED/Light sequencing suite written to harmonise a variety of LED strand/board types and interfaces into a standard API for write-once-run-anywhere lighting code.

Plasma also includes plasmad, a system daemon for sequencing light strips using PNG images to provide animation frames.

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Plasma was originally written to provide an easy way to sequence lights and swap out patterns for the Pimoroni Plasma kit.

Installing

Full install (recommended):

We've created an easy installation script that will install all pre-requisites and get your Plasma Arcade Button Lights up and running with minimal efforts. To run it, fire up Terminal which you'll find in Menu -> Accessories -> Terminal on your Raspberry Pi desktop, as illustrated below:

Finding the terminal

In the new terminal window type the command exactly as it appears below (check for typos) and follow the on-screen instructions:

curl https://get.pimoroni.com/plasma | bash

If you choose to download examples you'll find them in /home/pi/Pimoroni/plasma/.

Manual install:

sudo pip3 install plasmalights

Using Plasma Daemon

To install the Plasma daemon you should clone this repository, navigate to the "daemon" directory and run the installer:

git clone https://github.com/pimoroni/plasma
cd plasma/daemon
sudo ./install

Note: If you're using Picade Player X you should edit daemon/etc/systemd/system/plasma.service and change the output device option from -o GPIO:15:14 to -o SERIAL:/dev/ttyACM0. If you're using Unicorn HAT or pHAT you should use -o WS281X:WS2812:18:0.

If you're using GPIO on a Picade HAT you can adjust the pins accordingly using -o GPIO:<data>:<clock> where data and clock are valid BCM pins. If you're using the old Plasma/Hack header you may need to swap from -o GPIO:15:14 to -o GPIO:14:15 depending on how your connections are wired.


The Plasma daemon installer installs two programs onto your Raspberry Pi. plasma itself and a tool called plasmactl you can use to install and switch lighting effects. Plasma runs as a service on your system.

plasmactl commands:

  • plasmactl 255 0 0 - Set Plasma lights to R, G, B colour. Red in this case.
  • plasmactl <pattern> - Set Plasma lights to pattern image
  • plasmactl fps <fps> - Change plasma effect framerate (default is 30, lower FPS = less CPU)
  • plasmactl --list - List all available patterns
  • sudo plasmactl --install <pattern> - Install a new pattern, where <pattern> is the filename of a 24bit PNG image file

Development:

If you want to contribute, or like living on the edge of your seat by having the latest code, you should clone this repository, cd to the library directory, and run:

sudo python3 setup.py install

Documentation & Support