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Comment by mmmmax | Hacker News Reader

This is an amazing project and if you like WLED you’ll also like Pixelblaze which is full-stack including a coding interface: https://electromage.com/pixelblaze

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I keep intending to reinvent my own controller with an RP2040, but life gets in the way, so for the second year in a row, I’m using a Pixelblaze to control the 950 LEDs on my Christmas tree. It’s a continuous string (well, 19 strands of 50 lights connected), put on the tree in a zigzag pattern and manually mapped to a vaguely triangular 2-D shape. The patterns are mostly as downloaded from the Pixelblaze repository.

I’d highly recommend Pixelblaze for getting a fairly complex setup working quickly.

https://youtu.be/hu-RQx_NpAY

I wish there was a way to flash this to existing hardware. I’ve already got my LEDs running on ESP32s and I’d love to play with it, but I don’t want to have to wait for/pay for international shipping for essentially the same hardware.

Seems like a super cool project though! The effects look really cool and more “organic” than the WLED effects (to me at least), but I think I’ll just need to live vicariously through YouTubers on this one haha

I've used Pixelblaze for five different projects now and I'm extremely happy with it. My projects are all 3D-mapped LED sculptures and Pixelblaze is extremely easy to work with compared to some other controllers which only handle the data for you but leave the signal/pattern generation up to you to solve.

If I wanted to make a programmable LED grid in the least DIY way possible (I know nothing about electronics), would Pixelblaze be a good option?

I think the short answer to your question is yes.

You still have to be able to hook up few wires and you'll need to be able to power your LEDs and understand your power needs there, but the live compilation in web based development platform (that's served by the device, no cloud) makes it really ideal for rapid prototyping and getting up and running quickly. No fussing with Arduino IDE or compile times. It's one of those things that "just works".

If you want to see it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMKltz8ji0k

Yes.

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