driving a RGB LED (WS2812) on an esp32-s2-saola-1

[RobLatour]

I have an esp32-s2-saola-1 which has an addressable RGB LED (WS2812), driven by GPIO18 as described here:
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... -v1.2.html

Problem is I haven't yet found an Arduino compatible library to drive the RGB led correctly.

As an example, using FastLED ( http://fastled.io/ ) the code below turns the led green (when it should turn it red) and then generates the following error:

Guru Meditation Error: Core 0 panic'ed (Interrupt wdt timeout on CPU0)

and then reboots.

I suspect the led may be a GRB device, and not a RGB device as advertised, but that's not as much of a concern as the reboot.


#define LED_PIN 18
#define NUM_LEDS 1
#define BRIGHTNESS 10
#define LED_TYPE WS2812
#define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0

#include "FastLED.h"

CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];

void setup()
{

Serial.begin(115200);
Serial.println("Starting");
delay(5000); // saftey delay
Serial.println("Started");

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, LED_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS);
FastLED.setBrightness(BRIGHTNESS );

}

void loop() {

Serial.println("Red");
leds[0] = CRGB::Red;
FastLED.show(); // << failes here; have also tried FastLED.delay(100); as well as following FastLED.show(); with yield();
delay(1000);

Serial.println("Green");
leds[0] = CRGB::Green;
FastLED.show();
delay(1000);

Serial.println("Blue");
leds[0] = CRGB::Blue;
FastLED.show();
delay(1000);

}

A bunch of research and trials has me thinking the problem is tied to the esp32-s2-saola-1 being based on a single core chip, but I cannot confirm.

Would appreciate either:
a) knowing if I am missing something above
or
b) know another Arduion compatible library that allows the LED to be driven correctly.

With thanks

[savage]

FastLED does not look like it has been updated for ESP32-S2, with a lot of allowed pin assignments and hardware capabilities hard-coded to the original ESP32. For example, the default clockless driver uses 8 RMT channels, though the ESP32-S2 has only 4 RMT channels.

The core panic error means necessary task switching interrupts (to deal with WiFi tasks, for example) are not being processed in a timely manner: try removing the FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS line. With the default RMT driver, I think FastLED should be able to drive the WS2812 lines even while the chip deals with other processes (WiFi).

If that doesn't work, looking at the ESP32 header files in FastLED, specifically the clockless RMT driver, gives some suggestions for altering the driver behavior. Try adding some of the following define statements (one at a time) before including FastLED.h:

Code: Select all

#define FASTLED_RMT_MAX_CHANNELS 1
#define FASTLED_RMT_BUILTIN_DRIVER 1
#define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 1

For red appearing as green, you can try using GRB instead of RGB in the initialization line to see if it just a color ordering issue:

Code: Select all

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, LED_PIN, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS);

[RobLatour]

Thank you, but adding:

Code: Select all

#define FASTLED_RMT_MAX_CHANNELS 1
#define FASTLED_RMT_BUILTIN_DRIVER 1
#define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 1

In any combination did not resolve the rebooting problem.

Adding

Code: Select all

#define FASTLED_RMT_BUILTIN_DRIVER 1

did turn the LED red when it was supposed to, but then in further testing starting off with green the LED turned blue.

Changing to use:

Code: Select all

FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, LED_PIN, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS)

did correct the LED colour problem, but only if not also using:

Code: Select all

#define FASTLED_RMT_BUILTIN_DRIVER 1

In all cases, the rebooting continued.

I am not overly hung up on using the FastLED library, but like I said others I tried didn't work either.

Still looking for either a solution that will work with FastLED, or in fact any other library usable in the Arduino IDF for the esp32-s2-saola-1.

[luk.matuska]

Hello,
I also got into this proble, and the solution:

Code: Untitled.txt Select all

#define FASTLED_RMT_MAX_CHANNELS 1

#define FASTLED_RMT_BUILTIN_DRIVER 1

#define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 1

did worked for just a bit...
using Fastled example named ColorPalette did light up the led strip, but after a second or so, it crashed.
Dump from serial connection:

Code: Untitled.txt Select all

Guru Meditation Error: Core  0 panic'ed (LoadProhibited). Exception was unhandled.



Core  0 register dump:

PC      : 0x40081071  PS      : 0x00060031  A0      : 0x80026529  A1      : 0x3ffbfaa0  

A2      : 0x00000000  A3      : 0x00000000  A4      : 0x3ffc186c  A5      : 0x00000000  

A6      : 0x00000000  A7      : 0x00000001  A8      : 0x8002b0a5  A9      : 0x3ffbfaa0  

A10     : 0x00060023  A11     : 0x00000001  A12     : 0x00060021  A13     : 0x80000000  

A14     : 0x3ffbfdd8  A15     : 0x00000c94  SAR     : 0x00000020  EXCCAUSE: 0x0000001c  

EXCVADDR: 0x0000001c  LBEG    : 0x00060021  LEND    : 0x80000000  LCOUNT  : 0x40027501  

Core  0 was running in ISR context:

EPC1    : 0x40081071  EPC2    : 0x00000000  EPC3    : 0x00000000  EPC4    : 0x00000000



Backtrace:0x4008106e:0x3ffbfaa0 0x40026526:0x3ffbfad0 0x4002761e:0x3ffbfb20 0x4009a6eb:0x3ff9f950 |<-CORRUPTED

Glad to see someone trying to solve this problem.
Thanks

[luk.matuska]

Hello, i think i found some solution or alternative (that doesn't glitches randomly or sets the first LED to green all the time)
But first, i have to confess, this solution is for board esp32-s2 wrover, that i have programmed separately using programmer - so not exactly the saola-1 board. Anyway, this shoud work for the board because it(as esp32-s2 wroom) board is just lacking the psram - which i'm not using anyway, so all the specs should be same

To the point, i found library called ws2812fx from arduino library manager thingy.

You can control the RMT channels here - in example named ws2812fx_esp32.

The maybe downside is that it may be more advanced than Fastled, buf i you take a look at some examples, you should be able to use it.
if it is laggy, decerase speed parameter (i have something like 40 or so)

Hope this helped someone somehow

Thanks for all the help in this thread