Physical computing LED tutorial - Programmable APA102C RGB LED strip using FastLED

Aurora Borealis. Northern Lights. How to realise timed animations with APA102C or NeoPixel RGB LED strips using the FastLED Arduino library and gradient palettes

Setup

You can click the image to play the associated YouTube video

Schematic

BOM

€ 14,00 Adafruit Metro Mini 328 5V 16MHz microcontroller
€ 35,00 APA102C 144 RGB LED strip
€  4,00 Half-size transparent breadboard
€  1,00 Jumper cables
€  1,00 2,1mm DC barrel-jack
€  1,00 1000µF 10V el. cap., 470Ω resistor
€ 15,00 MEANWELL GST60A05-P1J PSU
€ 71,00

Useful links

μc https://www.adafruit.com/product/2590
LED strip https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-dotstar-leds
LED library https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED (see also Wiki pages)
LED library gradient palettes https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED/wiki/Gradient-color-palettes
LED library palette knife http://fastled.io/tools/paletteknife/