This project was originally started to develop a hardware/software platform for controlling 12V LED strips and 12V powered propane flame effects for a Burning Man art car (Ku, the Heavy Metal Tiki Lounge/God), however the capabilities of this project have now expanded well past that.

This project contains protocols designed to make it easy to build networked modules which read sensors and can activate various external devices. Currently supported types include:

• Value (Single-color LEDs, solenoids and ignitors for flame effects)
• RGB (RGB LEDs and LED strips)
• Pixels (WS2801 style LEDs, easily expandable to any type supported by the FastLED library)
• MPR121 (MPR121 capacitive touch sensors)
• RS485 (RS485 communication, such as ST485 or MAX485 chips)

The configuration for these modules are stored in EEPROM, is loaded during module startup, and make initializes these devices when read.

A general purpose protocol is used to communicate with the devices over any supported hardware layer, which currently includes RS485 for longer-distance two-wire connections and standard serial connections for communication via USB, Bluetooth modules such as Adafruit's Bluefruit EZ-Link, or serial-enabled wireless devices such as XBee radios.

While many features of these libraries can be used with generic Arduinos or breadboarded project, several special purpose PCBs have been designed for use with this code:

• Trigger Module
• HMTL Controller

• HMTL Fire Control box
• Adam's Cube and Triangle lights

In order to compile these sketches the contents of the Libraries must be linked to from within your Arduino/libaries directory, in addition several dependent libraries must also be installed:

Several additional libraries must be installed to make use of this project:

• MPR121, PixelUtils, etc
• Nick Gammon's RS485 library
• FastLED

There are python libraries provided for communicating with the modules and several command line utilities:

• TailArduino.py: Reads from a serial connection and prints to the console
• HMTLConfig.py: Used to write module configurations (along with the HMTLPythonConfig firmware)
• HMTLCommandServer.py: Server that connects to a module and forwards commands received over an IP socket
• HMTLClient.py: Send commands to a command server
• Scan.py: Send out polling commands via a command server to find all connected modules
• HMTLWebClient.py: Present a web page to control modules connected to a command server

The modules are configured via a JSON file, examples of which can be found in (see examples). To view and upload a modules configuration, load the HMTLPythonConfig sketch on the module. The HMTLConfig.py tool can then be used to view the current configuration and load new configurations onto a module.