06-Comet Effect - LED Strip Arduino Tutorial - FastLED Effects - on RGB LED WS2812B and Neopixels

Learn Arduino step by step with this FastLED LED Strip effect tutorial for beginners on up. Watch live on the LEDs as Dave works in the editor and debugger, showing you how to craft your own LED strip effects for ARGB (individually addressable RGB) LEDs.

This episode focuses on the "Twinkle Stars" and "Comet" effect.

The Heltec ESP32 module used in the video is available at the following link:

Software Prerequisites: Install the following!

Even though we will not be actively using their IDE, the Arduino software must be installed on the machine even though we'll be using VS Code. Thus, we install the desktop IDE and then never use it. You may wish to launch it and install the ESP32 platform to make it useful for quick scratch projects, etc.

(2) Install Visual Studio Code from

Visual Studio Code will be our editor and IDE.

(3) Install the PlatformIO IDE

PlatformIO IDE is an "environment" for VSCode that includes the compilers, tools, and everything you need to compile, build, and run projects for many systems. The Arduino ESP32 is but one of those, so we must install the ESP32 platform within PlatformIO:

(4) Within PlatformIO/VSCode, install the Espressif ESP32 Platform for Arduino

All code is available on github:

[PenguinKunz]

I can't tell you how validated I feel seeing a legendary Microsoft developer write such beautiful code only to forget to call it. Makes me feel a little better.

[pbostonRR]

This is just what the doctor ordered for an old guy (83+) that loves to tinker with stuff. I’ve copied and pasted a few addressable LED strip routines and enjoyed sharing the blinking lights, but this gives me an idea about what can be done to explore it more fully.
I’ll be checking out more of your videos.
Thanks for the excellent work!

[rjsiii]

I'm loving this. I bought a set for my dad to tinker, and recommended it to a few friends. I love how you explain the led logic, the code organization, and failures.

Thanks for doing this. The multiple views is great for following along at home

[TurboSqud]

Just started a project that use these and there haven't been many good in depth videos about them until I found yours. The demonstration of the led functions are really appreciated as I did find some videos showing the code but not what it would make the LEDs do. Just my luck your videos were released recently just before I get stuck into my project more, thanks.

[ryusaikou]

iDirection tip is exactly why i love this series, been programming for years and would not of thought of that. I don't know when I will ever use that but its great to have another tool in the kit.

[shawnolson]

Great job... Your logic on how you programmed it was spot on...

[PhilipHousel]

This is fun. I removed the pass count, doubled the number of "colors" adding 50% black now it randomly changes the color of random leds including black turning some off. Very cool!

[morrisdark]

This is the best Arduino related programming video I've seen. Thank you.

You've catched me with that Knight Rider theme - the good old days...

[IamEqualtoall]

Excellent video Dave! I love the way you present the material. It's easy to follow along and beneficial to see you build the code one line at a time while explaining the thought process. Showing how header files are made, used, and included is helpful. Keep up the great work!

[Bishy.]

You are so amazing! I can't wait for my hardware to arrive on Monday and give this a shot!

[crazeedriver]

I’m actually aiming for the Knight Rider effect in my project so this helps greatly. Thank you very much!

[bigpimpinA]

Love this video Dave! Will be trying this when my strip lights come in tomorrow (or at least a variation of it).

[NeoMudd]

Awesome, Dave. Thank you. 👍 I am glad to see this one so quick after the Marquee, but I am still debugging a small issue with my typing the code for Marquee. With my schedule, I can work on your tutorials every once and a while, but hoping to debug Marquee tomorrow, then work on the Comet effect also. Learning a lot watching your series and loving the content you provide. Keep it up.

[arctain]

Dave... awesome series!!! Very fun to follow along - and while my typing skills aren’t freaky fast like yours (and thus the pause button gets hit often...) the concept behind what you are doing is appreciated! Thank you!

[igcas]

I'm here to see the Legend Task manager creator 😍👍😎 Love From Sri Lanka

[marinoarturo]

Great job with this series, for days I have been looking for a good tutorial on FastLED and this is the one that finally made sense to me. Thank you very much! I'm looking forward to more videos

[gianronelllaurenaria]

Awesome!! Thanks to your video I just saved $50 by watching this, I was planning to buy custom programmed arduino led strips but now hehehe thanks again!!!

[JamesGB]

Hello Dave,
I see you are a man of your word! Thanks so much for your video.
Wow your are a former Microsoft developer, I would kill to have such knowledge 🙄.
Once again thx, really helps to understand FastLed. Now looking up on github and elsewhere to find complete data with library function list. Great job! 😃

[guiltypleasure]

Thank you very much Dave! Extremely useful for me.