Day 2

Here’s the step-by-step:

1. Collect your parts- Flora, Neopixels, wire, cotton balls, laser cut snowflakes, ugly sweater bling.

2. Download and install software- Adafruit’s Arduino IDE, FAST LED library, and Vixen (see resources below)

3. Upload sketch to Flora (remember USBTinyISP programmer, and remember you COM port too)

4. Close out of your Arduino IDE

5. Configure Vixen for Generic serial port using the same COM port as your Flora was using. (see blog link below)

6. Setup Vixen Displays- I suggest breaking your full strand of NeoPixels into small sections/segments so that you can do different effects on each segment. I used about 80 pixels on my sweater with 8 different segments (also called elements in Vixen).

7. Connect your NeoPixels to Pin6, Ground and VBatt on the Flora (make sure you put a 330ohm resistor on the data pin of your first pixel so you don’t blow that pixel and kill your whole setup!).

8. Close Vixen and the Flora.

9. Turn on your devices in this order: Plug in the flora connected to the Neopixels (you should see a green light and yellow RX LED on the Flora flash.

10. Open Vixen (you should now see a solid yellow light on Flora if all is configured correctly if not, make sure that your display is set up to receive the same COM port as your Flora is using)

11. Open a “New Sequence- Timed sequence” in Vixen.

12. Drag an effect to the pixel segment you’d like to test and click the “play” arrow (green play button). I like to use the “chase” effect to test out the whole strip at once.

13. Build your sweater: cut strip into segments, run wires, and resolder to chain your strip segments all the way around your sweater to different locations (I started at the bottom left, then up the zipper, around the collar, down the right zipper, to the bottom, up to the left middle, left pocket and finally around the back to the right pocket.) You can power pixels from anywhere the beginning, the middle or the end (or all of them) just make sure your data pin wire is 1 continuous strip)

14. Test it again. Once your strips are installed on your sweater check all connections and retest.

15. Take a break.

16. Spend way too long syncing music to your lights in Vixen audio track. Click here for my synced version of the Frozen remix.

17. Decorate and camouflage your LEDs with cotton balls, or laser cut felt, or other fun stuff.

18. Tweak, troubleshoot, and repeat.

19. Hook it all up to your computer, hide your computer in a gift bag, put on your sweater (or vest) and head out to your Ugly Sweater Christmas party.

20. Enjoy, have fun and remember, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is signing loudly for all to hear”

Advanced Resources:

• Vixen and Arduino- This website has the perfect “how to” to get some RGB LEDs strips up and running with Vixen. I’ve uploaded the code to Adafruit’s Flora E-textile board and it runs just fine.
  • Just make sure you have the FAST LED library installed and you should be great! http://blog.huntgang.com/2014/11/08/vixen-lights-3-x-arduino-pixel-controller-ws2812b/
• Vixen- (only available for Windows) http://www.vixenlights.com/
• AdaFruit Flora- You can use an Arduino Uno but I wanted to go mobile so I choose the Flora for some mobile horsepower. https://learn.adafruit.com/getting-started-with-flora/overview
• WavePad Sound Editor- Just a nice little slim sound editing tool. Make sure you get the free trial version and watch out for that pesky Ask toolbar checkbox too! http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/
• Hip Frozen Remix – Thanks Mr. Fallen Super Hero for the awesome groove. It really makes for a great light show. You can find it on SoundCloud. Every time I hear it I just want to dance. https://soundcloud.com/fallensuperherosg/frozen-let-it-go-fallen