I’d love to use a Maestro 24 to control an APA102C LED strip, but not sure about how specifically to do this. For example, which pins should I use to plug in the clock vs data pins, since there is only one signal pin for each channel? Assuming I should use one channel for GND, V, and data, and then use a separate channel just for clock, then will the two channels work together automagically? Or is there some other configuration necessary? And finally, once the wiring is in place, how would I control the LED strip via the usual Maestro Control Center settings? For example, how do I specify color or brightness for each LED individually? Is this covered in the Maestro SDK somehow already?
Any clarity or even just pointers in the right direction would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
Hello,
The Maestro could be used to drive those APA102C LED strips, but the frame rate would be pretty low and implementing it would be considerably harder than using our APA102C library for Arduino.
You can choose any two channels on the Maestro, configure them as digital outputs, and then drive them high and low in the right sequence to control the APA102C strip. The Maestro and its software do not have direct support for SPI communication, so you would have to generate all the signals yourself. The easiest way to do that is to write a script. You should look at the “Shiftbrite” example under the “Digital output” heading in the “Example Scripts” section of the “Pololu Maestro Servo Controller User’s Guide” to see how you can send signals like that. You should also look at the APA102C product page to understand what kind of signals the APA102C expects.
-Derrill
