Adding a Button

Pixelblazes come with a compact button on the controller. You can connect an additional external button that extends the built-in one.

Review: The onboard button

The SMD button present on Pixelblaze boards since July, 2019
The SMD button present on all Pixelblaze since July 2019.

Pixelblaze controllers have a small button on the top side of the circuit board.

When the button is pushed momentarily:

  • If the sequencer is off, it will change the pattern to the next one in the main pattern list.
  • When the sequencer is in "shuffle all" mode, a random pattern from the main list is activated.
  • When the sequencer is in playlist mode, the next pattern from the defined playlist is activated.

If the button is pressed for more than 5 seconds it will reset the WiFi settings and put Pixelblaze into WiFi setup mode. In setup mode, Pixelblaze creates an unprotected WiFi network named "Pixelblaze_XXXXX", and the WiFi setup page is available on http://192.168.4.1.

Adding an additional accessible button

Pixelblaze Standard (not the Pico) provides solder pads on the back labeled GND and BTN. These can be used to connect an external momentary pushbutton in a more convenient location, such as outside an enclosure or with a longer pair of wires to a hand-held control to change the active pattern.

BTN and GND pads highlighted on the backside of a Pixelblaze v3.6 Standard

The BTN pin is normally high; when pressed it is momentarily shorted to ground. On Pixelblaze v3 the button is on GPIO32 and uses an internal pull-up resistor. On v2 the button is connected to the GPIO0 pin with an external pull-up resistor. Pixelblaze is open hardware and these connections are shown on the schematics.

For adding additional buttons that can be read from the running pattern to control aspects of your pattern code, see the GPIO page.