Crashes with small strings

[Zebble]

Locks up, or at least the example program does, when a small string is used. For example. a 6-light string:

MEOG35String lights_1(12, 6, 6, 0, false);

Seems to last for about 20 seconds, and then locks up.

Any ideas?

[medpixman]

I have a similar problem. I have 25 lights - but the program only works
when I use 50 for the light count.
On Nov 3, 2014 10:01 PM, "Zebble" notifications@github.com wrote:

Locks up, or at least the example program does, when a small string is
used. For example. a 6-light string:

MEOG35String lights_1(12, 6, 6, 0, false);

Seems to last for about 20 seconds, and then locks up.

Any ideas?

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#3.

[pr0crast1nate]

Are you powering the string from the Arduino's 5v line or via the power brick? Mine used to lock up after a while without the brick. Make sure you have a common ground also.

[Zebble]

pr0crast1nate,

Yes, I'm using a power brick. 5V 4A max. It seems to work fine with 50 lights, but not with a smaller string. In my example, I had 6 lights.

I think it might be a specific pattern that is causing this issue, so I'm going to do some debugging.

Will post back with my findings.

[Zebble]

Looks like it might be the MEOSimplexNoise light program. For short strings (in my case, 6 lights), it crashes everytime. However, if I have 6 lights on pin 13, and 50 lights on pin 12 as an additional light light group, SimplexNoise seems to work just fine.

So, for now, I'll just avoid the SimplexNoise program for short strings, until I can spend more time debugging.

[Zebble]

Found the problem.

In MEOSimplexNoise.cpp, numSpacing (line 24) is hardcoded to 18 bulbs. If you are using less than 18 bulbs, there will be an infinite for loop created starting at around line 128. This is because the increment (node_spacing) ends up being 0 for any number of bulbs less than 18.

I changed line 24 from:

#define numSpacing 18

To:

int numSpacing;

And then added just above line 43 [int node_spacing = light_count_ / numSpacing;] :

numSpacing = light_count_/3;

No more crashes!