FastLED | FastLED library for colored LED animation

The first loop will have leds[0] turn blue, then it will display it on the light strip with FastLED.show(). Next it will make the same leds[0] turn black, however it will only display that in the second iteration of the loop.

The second loop will do the same to leds[1], and so on.

Reliable serial communication is not trivial. Ideally you would make you own binary communication protocol setting up a packet of bytes with a header that describes how many following bytes actually have data and perhaps even a checksum.

Strings will do to get started and it's great you're using nf() to make data easier to parse.

One potential gotcha could be the switch between putting a string together (rgbInput()) and reading one char at a time (char val = Serial.read();).

I would recommend breaking the problem down into smaller simpler parts, testing/debugging each part, then putting the parts back together one at a time to avoid integration bugs.

For example, the main challenge seems to be serial communication so I'd write a Processing and Arduino sketch to ensure that works reliably before adding in LED control.

Let's go for the option of \n terminated strings, even though it's sending a redundant extra character(e.g. port.write("2\n");) it would make buffering simpler:

• always buffer until a newline
• trim() the string for newline
• if the trimmed string has length 1 it's a command (like '2', 'l', 't'), otherwise it's a colour triplet

Here's a basic Arduino sketch that uses the ideas above (and a bit of your code ;) ):

Your first attempt leads to undefined behavior.

You could replace:

Have you tried:

Problems with Receiving
If receiving isn't working, first make sure the Arduino is at least receiving raw codes. > The LED on pin 13 of the Arduino will blink when IR is being received. If not, then there's probably a hardware issue.

If the codes are getting received but cannot be decoded, make sure the codes are in one of the supported protocols. If codes should be getting decoded, but are not, some of the measured times are probably not within the 20% tolerance of the expected times. You can print out the minimum and maximum expected values and compare with the raw measured values.

The examples/IRrecvDump sketch will dump out details of the received data. The dump method dumps out these durations but converts them to microseconds, and uses the convention of prefixing a space measurement with a minus sign. This makes it easier to keep the mark and space measurements straight.

IR sensors typically cause the mark to be measured as longer than expected and the space to be shorter than expected. The code extends marks by 100us to account for this (the value MARK_EXCESS). You may need to tweak the expected values or tolerances in this case.

The library does not support simultaneous sending and receiving of codes; transmitting will disable receiving.

from: http://www.righto.com/2009/08/multi-protocol-infrared-remote-library.html

P.S. I would have preferred to comment this and ask, but sadly I am new and my reputation still needs some work :)

I have a separate header with projects like this with a name like WiFiCredentials.h The body of that file will just be:

No. What you want to do is not possible.

Your question is related to this, and the same answer applies.

What you want to do would be achieved by a class template. For instance:

Instead of using infinite loops, you can just check for if any other command is received.

E.g:

instead of