Error installing i2c-bus for PCA9865 node

General
21

hmmmm,
i tried npm install arrowmeiwaracing/node-red-contrib-pca9685 from a terminal with the following user/dir context: pi@raspberrypi:~/.node-red

A restart of the Node-Red and the 'PCA9685 Out' node showed up in pallete under Output. So yeah... regarding installs.... perhaps if the author : fauberso will include the edits from the editor : arrowmeiwaracing , we will be able to install this guy right from the Pallette Manager...

Now I will play with it and see how it goes. I held off on purchasing hardware until I knew for certain that Node-RED supported it... I think I might have small little board from Adadruit kicking aound that I might be able to dim some LEDs with just to find out...

22

I successfully loaded this Node and used it.

I had a small AdaFruit 815 board (which is their lightduty 16ch PWM board that uses the NXP PCA9685 chip). I was able to dim an LED using a Slider.

[{"id":"43a51cc6.559b64","type":"tab","label":"LED PWM TEST","disabled":false,"info":""},{"id":"15d5881b.b5e9a8","type":"inject","z":"43a51cc6.559b64","name":"100%","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"topic":"","payload":"100","payloadType":"num","x":250,"y":100,"wires":[["3e5907f3.1ea208"]]},{"id":"87b0c9a3.f93bb8","type":"inject","z":"43a51cc6.559b64","name":"50%","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"topic":"","payload":"50","payloadType":"num","x":250,"y":140,"wires":[["3e5907f3.1ea208"]]},{"id":"f719d2cb.029af","type":"inject","z":"43a51cc6.559b64","name":"Off","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"topic":"","payload":"0","payloadType":"num","x":250,"y":180,"wires":[["3e5907f3.1ea208"]]},{"id":"3e5907f3.1ea208","type":"PCA9685 out","z":"43a51cc6.559b64","name":"PWM Output 4 (Led)","pca9685":"5b15470a.b465d8","channel":"4","payload":"","unit":"percent","onStep":"0","x":465,"y":140,"wires":[]},{"id":"d81e20df.b8c88","type":"ui_slider","z":"43a51cc6.559b64","name":"LED","label":"slider","tooltip":"","group":"ce06ee74.868e2","order":4,"width":0,"height":0,"passthru":true,"outs":"all","topic":"","min":0,"max":"100","step":1,"x":250,"y":260,"wires":[["3e5907f3.1ea208"]]},{"id":"5b15470a.b465d8","type":"PCA9685","z":"","deviceNumber":"1","address":"64","frequency":"50"},{"id":"ce06ee74.868e2","type":"ui_group","z":"","name":"Dosing","tab":"efc5ff03.07972","order":8,"disp":true,"width":"5","collapse":false},{"id":"efc5ff03.07972","type":"ui_tab","z":"","name":"Overview1","icon":"dashboard","order":1,"disabled":false,"hidden":false}]

One that that is interesting about the AdaFruit... the default I2C address is 64 (0x040). When you scan the bus, it also reports a another I2C address of 112. That's interesting... my Relay board will report a 2nd address of 112 as well if I enable the built-in Multiplexer. I'm guessing this board has a multiplexer as well as it has i2c In and i2c Out.

23

Given the lack of response by the original author, maybe we should ask the second to publish it to npm as a different name eg node-red-contrib-pca9685-pwm or some such ?

24

I'm in agreement with that, but I would caution the 2nd contributor, arrowmeiwaracer to update the information in the Readme on the i2c pre-requesite and reference i2c-bus instead.

The original author did such a nice job on the tutorial that is in the Readme. It was really rather thorough and accurate (basically illustrating the exact AdaFruit board that I happened to have in my kit). I'm of the opinion that even as arrowmeiwaracer publishes his fork, which will no doubt become the defacto version we all use in Node-RED, he should continue to give credit to the initial fine work of Fauberso (Frédéric Auberson) in the Readme for the very good tutorial and instructions.

I'm going to have a look as well and see if some improvements can be implemented that would permit it to output the status of multiple channels much the same way as the node-red-mcp23008 i2c capable node (a node contributed by NCD.io). Hopefully, I can glean something from the logic of the html and js of that node and recommend it for the pca9685-pwm node...

25

Well - if you are going to make further improvements - please check if arrowmeiwaracer is still active and will take the PR :-)....otherwise we are back to square one - in which case it may be better for you to create the -pwm node and then you can include the readme and credit etc etc - while also fixing it ...

26

well, I'm a java script novice, and i've never maintained a github repository, published to npm, nor contributed a node-red node. I'll see if arrowmeiwaracer has a desire to continue it first.

27

Yay. The author of the original node had awoken and accepted my PR to bump the i2c library. Hopefully this will now install and unblock a load of you. Not quite on npm /flows library yet - but things are moving. Should be there in a short while.