OctoWs2811 Library Questions

[craiglindley]

I'm working on a project where I'm going to need to drive about 40 LEDs and I hope to use the OctoWS2811 library because of the fact it uses DMA and doesn't slow down the Teensy 3.1. My questions are:

1. I am thinking of just using a single OctoWS2811 output (pin 2) to drive the single string of LEDs. I'm doing this because I need the other pins for other uses. My question is should I go into the OctoWS2811 library code and comment out the pinMode calls for the other seven outputs so I can use the pins elsewhere ? Will this break anything in the library ?

2. I also need to use pin 12 of the Teensy which is called frame sync on the OctoWS2811 adapter for other purposes. I looked through the library code can cannot find pin 12 referenced anywhere. Has this feature been removed ? and if so am I free to use pin 12 ?

Thanks for any advise you can offer

 

[PaulStoffregen]

Unless you use the pins for non-GPIO output (input mode, serial, PWM, etc) the OctoWS2811 DMA will be writing to the GPIO output register, which makes those pins unusable for digitalWrite usage.

Pin 12 is only used by the VideoDisplay example. It's easy to change. If you don't use that example, pin 12 isn't used at all by the library.