rudelm/schalterbox

A box full of leds and buttons

Schalterbox

The Schalterbox is a hobby project of @sippndipp and @rudelm. Our kids love to push buttons so we decided to make something blinky for them.

Setup

We use VSCode as IDE in combination with the official Arduino app:

brew cask install vscode arduino

Install these extensions in VSCode:

• Arduino
• C/C++

Libraries

• https://github.com/brianlow/Rotary
• https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED
• https://github.com/thomasfredericks/Bounce2

Run the thing

Alt + CMD + R (verify) Alt + CMD + U (upload)

Wiring

When connecting a sensor to a pin configured with INPUT_PULLUP, the other end should be connected to ground. In the case of a simple switch, this causes the pin to read HIGH when the switch is open, and LOW when the switch is pressed.

Taken from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins

So every switch is connected on one pin to the Arduino and the other is connected to ground. Which means we need to check if the pin value is low and need to react to the push or change.

pinMode(pin, INPUT_PULLUP);     // Enable pin as input and activate internal pullup resistor

The Rotary Encoder also requires in its begin() method a boolean set to true, so that the INPUT_PULLUP is used.

Rotary Encoder

• push button pin to Arduino pin 2
• encoder pin A to Arduino pin 3
• encoder pin B to Arduino pin 4
• both encoder ground pins to ground (GND)

Piezo buzzer

• piezo buzzer pin to Arduino pin 5
• other piezo buzzer pin to ground

WS2801 LED strips

Our LED strips don't use the default color scheme for the wiring, so this is specifically for our used scheme. However, you should be able to find which line is data and clock for your LED strip. Here's an example from Adafruit for WS2801 LED strips.

• power (red) to power (5V)
• ground (yellow) to ground (GND)
• data (green) to Arduino pin 11
• clock (blue) to Arduino pin 12

Push button for colors

We've got three push buttons for the color selection: red, green, blue

• red to Arduino pin 22
• green to Arduino pin 24
• blue to Arduino pin 26
• other pins of the buttons to ground (GND)

Push button for sound

We've got a push button with light support which also sticks in its pushed state. It just connects/disconnects the line to the piezo buzzer on Arduino pin 5.

Switch for changing light direction

We've got a on/on switch which controls the light direction, if there's currently a LED light running in a given direction.

• center pin to ground (GND)
• upper pin to Arduino pin 28
• lower pin to Arduino pin 30

Rotary switch

The rotary switch controls the currently playing LED mode. Depending on the number of programs we can hook up 6 digital inputs of the arduino

• center pin to ground (GND)
• position 1 pin to Arduino pin 32
• position 2 pin to Arduino pin 34
• position 3 pin to Arduino pin 36
• position 4 pin to Arduino pin 38
• position 5 pin to Arduino pin 40
• position 6 pin to Arduino pin 42

Power switch (aka. the red switch)

The large power switch connects the 5V power to the board.

Examples

The examples folder contains example code to deal with certain aspects of our box:

Debounce

Debouncing a push button to get a reliable button state.

• Pin 5

Obsolete since we use the Bounce2 library.

ColorTemperature

Example of the FastLED library to control the WS2801 LED stripes.

• data pin on Arduino pin 12
• clock pin on Arduino pin 13

toneMelody

Example of the Arduino tone() method and how to play melodies on a piezo buzzer. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ToneMelody?from=Tutorial.Tone

• Pin 5

Rotary Encoder

We use a rotary encoder from ALPS, bought from Reichelt Elektronik. There's unfortunately no data sheet available. However, we've seen a suitable pin layout on the mikrocontroller.net forum.

According to Reichelt, our rotary encoder has

• 15 pulses
• 30 lock-in positions
• one push button

Two pins are required for rotation detection One pin is required for push button

The circuit:

• push button pin to Arduino pin 2
• encoder pin A to Arduino pin 3
• encoder pin B to Arduino pin 4
• encoder ground pin to ground (GND)

We've tried to use Interrupts on our Arduino Mega, but weren't successful. The example interrupt doesn't work, the Polling example works.

Troubleshooting

Arduino port cannot be found

We use an Arduino Clone which doesn't have the original ch340 USB to serial chipset. Here's a helpful repo for the installation of the drivers under macOS Mojave and newer. This might also be worth a try.

VSCode doesn't find the required libs

The file c_cpp_properties.json contains references to the required libs. There might be some problems with paths being not working so the compiler complains about missing header files.

Some libs should be installed using the Arduino.app and its extension manager, so that the libs will be available under ~/Documents/Arduino/libraries

• FastLED
• Rotary

This lib should be installed manually by either pulling the repo or downloading and extracting the repo to ~/Documents/Arduino/libraries

• Bounce2