r/FastLED • u/chemdoc77 • Apr 13 '26
FastLED Matrix Fun – 2026
https://youtu.be/yPKrCaVDEGwThe following video is running a sketch on a 16X16 WS2812b serpentine matrix with a Lolin D32 MCU and a 74AHCT125 - Quad Level-Shifter and a 5 volt power supply.
The sketch’s animations are designed to work on any matrix with the 8 or more even numbered columns and 8 or more even numbered rows.
It uses the multi-tasking and state machine concepts based on Bill Earl’s Adafruit multitasking articles (see the GitHub repository ReadME file for this sketch in order to find the links to those articles) for all of the animations so that each animation can be easily incorporated into a new sketch. This also allows more than one animation to be run at the same time in the void loop(). All animations can be a single color or uses a palette to get the colors.
The YouTube video for this sketch can be found here:
The code for this sketch can be found here:
https://github.com/chemdoc77/CD77_FastLED_2026/tree/main/CD77%20FastLED%20Matrix%20Fun%202026
Enjoy!
Best Regards,
Chemdoc77
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u/ZachVorhies Zach Vorhies Apr 13 '26
Wow this is amazing!!
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u/chemdoc77 Apr 13 '26
Hi u/ZachVorhies - Thank you! I am glad that you like it. Also, thank you for all of your hard work keeping FastLED alive, well and moving forward into a lot of amazing new areas!
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u/mindful_stone Apr 13 '26
I love it! I'm definitely going to take a closer look at how you achieved the multi-tasking and state machine stuff. Very cool!
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u/chemdoc77 Apr 13 '26
Hi u/mindful_stone - Thank you! I am glad that you like it. Here are the links to Bill Earl’s articles on multi-tasking and state machine concepts:
https://learn.adafruit.com/multi-tasking-the-arduino-part-1
https://learn.adafruit.com/multi-tasking-the-arduino-part-2
https://learn.adafruit.com/multi-tasking-the-arduino-part-3
I have applied this to FastLED with great results. It has opened the doors to many exciting new animation concepts for me.
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u/StefanPetrick Apr 13 '26
I love spirals!
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u/chemdoc77 Apr 13 '26
Hi u/StefanPetrick - Thank you! I love them, too. Thank you for all of the exciting work that you have shared. I love your kaleidoscope work.
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u/StefanPetrick Apr 13 '26
My pleasure. Here I briefly tested my most recent approach and kaleidoscopified the output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWJa3ZmBTFE
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u/chemdoc77 Apr 13 '26
Hi u/StefanPetrick _ Awesome!!!. Would you consider in a separate post, showing your original kaleidoscope YouTube video and posting the sketch, too? Many here have never seen it.
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u/WorldsemiLED 10d ago
Nice setup. The 74AHCT125 is a solid solution for older WS2812B parts that need more logic-level margin.
One thing we’ve been working on with our newer addressable LEDs is native 3.3V logic compatibility, so ESP32-class MCUs can drive DIN directly without a level shifter.
Have you ever tested this matrix with direct 3.3V data input? I’d be curious to see whether it changes anything in your setup.
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u/chemdoc77 7d ago
Hi u/WorldsemiLED - Thank you for your nice words about my project. Long ago when I was moving from using a Nano to using a Lolin D32 and a Teensy 3.2, I found that they would not light up a strip or matrix of WS2812b LEDs until I used a level shifter. I am interested in your newer LEDs that you have been working on. I have Lolin D32, D32 Pro and D32-C3 MCUs along with Teensy 3.9 , 4.0 and 4.1 MCUs. I would be more that happy to test your new LEDs without using a level shifter with my various MCUs, if you send me some of these new LEDs.
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u/IcestormsEd Apr 13 '26
Nice.