Aurora + Teensy 3.6 + SmartMatrix Shield v4 problems

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Hi There, really hoping someone can help… For the life of me, I can not get Aurora to work on my Teensy 3.6. The Display is blank, occasionally there will a few very dim pixels alight in a row, but generally nothing happens.

Looking over this community and the github issues, I’ve followed a few recommendations to check stuff.

The “FeaturedDemo” example that’s part of SmartMatrix3 works perfectly. The “AnimatedGifs” also works perfectly, and cycles though the GIFs on my SD Card.

I’ve tried using the hex files downloaded from the release page, I’ve also tried compiling from source (It compiles fine, but it just does exactly the same as the pre-built hex files)

I’n not sure what else to try, since the Panel Settings match those from the examples (width, height, scan rate etc etc) so I don’t get why it’s not working :frowning:

Any help would be much appreciated.

MTIA

1 Like
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Did you add or uncomment the ‘#include <SmartMatrixShieldV4.h>’ line? See a SmartMatrix Library example for where it needs to be. I’m on mobile and can’t check if I have the right name or if it’s already in Aurora.

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Hi Louis, thanks for the response, The line ‘#include <SmartLEDShieldV4.h>’ wasn’t anywhere in the Aurora code, however I just added it comparing with a SmartMatrix example like you suggested, but still nothing :frowning:

(PS: as per the Example, I Added #include <SmartLEDShieldV4.h> BEFORE SmartMatrix3.h)

Additional: I went through the setup(); and added incremental Serial.print lines…

So, I see “starting…”, I see “ProductID: 0x…”,

However, it STOPs here “TANNER:11”

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Screenshot 2019-05-07 at 14.43.50.png1228×1024 111 KB

the Serial.print of TANNER:12 onwards doesn’t get printed to the serial :confused:

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Screenshot 2019-05-07 at 14.46.13.png432×1162 65 KB

… I commented out this:

 menuItemAudioPatterns.visible = enableAudioPatterns;
  menuItemAudioPatterns.playModeEnabled = true;
  menuItemAudioPatterns.paletteEnabled = true;
  menuItemPatterns.playModeEnabled = true;
  menuItemPatterns.paletteEnabled = true;
  menuItemAnimations.visible = sdAvailable && animations.imageCount > 0;
  menuItemAnimations.playModeEnabled = true;

and the display is working now - so does Aurora NEED the Audio thing connected otherwise it crashes or something?.. I’ve only got the IR connected because I’m in the UK and the Audio thing is enroute from America (couldn’t get one in the UK) so was building everything first.

Since commenting that out, I now have the word “Patterns” scrolling and a swirly pattern going on in the background, and everything seems to be working, the IR remote is working, I can change pattern etc I can get to the settings menu… so I have to conclude that it doesn’t work if the Audio board is not connected - is that right!?..

In fact, breaking it down further, it’s these 2 specific lines that prevent it from working:

//menuItemAudioPatterns.visible = enableAudioPatterns;
//menuItemAnimations.visible = sdAvailable && animations.imageCount > 0;

(I commented those 2 out to make it work hence the // at the front)

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I haven’t looked at Aurora in years, and the author Jason isn’t working on the project anymore. I don’t know exactly what Aurora needs in terms of Audio hardware, or software.

Can you just change this one line to = false and make it work?

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The way the MSGEQ7 chip is attached to the Teensy, I’d expect things to work even if there was no hardware. There are two outputs from the Teensy, with no validation to see if anything’s attached, and an analog input, which should read the noise on the pin even if nothing’s driving it. Could be a software, not hardware issue, and could be broken even if you get your hardware attached.