RS485 and PixelBlaze

I have a project where I’d like to use an RS485 wind direction sensor to change the HUE in my pattern.

I have found a few articles on using RS485 with ESP32 but not sure how I would integrate with PixelBlaze… I suppose I could use something like and Arduino to read the data then send that to the PixelBlaze but I’m trying to keep it simple.

Cheers

Phil

Yeah, best bet would be to read the RS485 with another MCU/Arduino, then either emulate the sensor board protocol or beam over wifi to inject variables.

I’d be happy to help with either direction if you need more info.

And by “beam over WiFi”, the current best method that we’ve documented is to use a variable and set it via the API (see Pixelblaze-client: Python 3 library for Pixelblaze)

And then that variable would be used by your pattern as desired.

What generates that could be a computer you hook up via rs485 to the wind sensor…

If you want portable, then try this


Also

And then have the esp8266 (or ESP32) reach out to the Pixelblaze, either as wifi, or yes, emulate the SensorBoard, or do a simple rx/tx connection to the Pixelblaze. (Again, @zranger1 seems to have done a lot with making rx/tx stuff with the PB work, so check his repos)

Excellent, thanks for the help so far.

I’m still trying to figure out if I use the RS485 sensor or take the easy road of using a continuous rotation potentiometer…

I’ll report back fro sure…

Cheers

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