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REACTIVO / Quick Guide

Sometimes, even easy things can be tricky. This page will guide you through the installation process step- by-step.

The very first setup

REACTIVO / First look at the controller

REACTIVO design is clear and easy to navigate around. DC power connector and Wi-Fi connection button is on the backside. Status LEDs are also located here.

On the front side, you have big green connector, or SPI output (it is basically LED signal output). Also, 2 small black connectors for external triggers/sensors (digital or analog).

On the side, you can find an Micro SD-Card slot. One card is included in your kit.

You can jump to any section here, but notice that you can miss some important steps.

Network Connection
Software - First Setup
LED Strip Mapping
Screen Grabber Effect
Solid Color Effect

REACTIVO / 1. Hardware Installation

1. Step / LED Strips installationitself

  1. Plan carefully where you want to install your LED strips (desk, shelve, PC case etc.)
  2. Use cleaning-solution to remove dust. Peal off 3M tape cover and attach strips. Follow small arrows that determine the direction of the signal.
  3. Connect LED strips either in a row or use extension cables if necessary.

2. Step / REACTIVO & LED Strip output

Connect SPI cable adapter to REACTIVO and first LED strip.

Tips & Tricks

  • Use extension cable between controller and SPI cable.
  • To hide the controller (e.g. under table) use small piece of 3M tape and stick it  under table.

3. Step / Power source

  1. Connect a power adapter to your REACTIVO. Green diode lights up.
  2. Insert SD-Card (port is on the side of REACTIVO).
  3. You should recognize the welcome effect displaying on your LED strip.

REACTIVO / 2. Wi-Fi network connection

1. Step / REACTIVO phone app

Install REACTIVO application to your mobile phone.

If you don’t want to install the app to your phone, use diret access IP (check step 3 in this section).

App Store
App Store
Google Play
Google Play

2. Step / Connect to REACTIVO Wi-Fi

  1. Search for the controller in Wi-Fi network list.
  2. Connect to REACTIVO. No password is required.

3. Step / Device list

  1. Open REACTIVO mobile app. It will  show you a list of available controllers.
  2. Click on the controller that you want to control.
  3. The app opens your web browser automatically.

Tips & Tricks

  • In case you don’t want to install REACTIVO  app, just type in 192.168.4.1 to your web browser.

4. Step / Connect REACTIVO to your home Wi-fi

  1. In the browser, select your home network
  2. Enter password and click on Log in
  3. Blue diode starts to flicker and after successful login, it will stay solid.
! Notice
 
From this point, your REACTIVO controller is connected to your Wi-Fi network

REACTIVO Software / 3. First launch and setup

1. Step / Install REACTIVO Software

  1. Download Reactivo software from this link.
  2. Open setup.exe to install.
  3. Next, next, next, and done 🙂 Installation is successful.

2. Step / First launch

  1. Make sure that your computer and REACTIVO controller are on the same network.
  2. Launch REACTIVO software
! Notice

On first launch, the software should automatically find all REACTIVO controllers on the network, create magic Screen grabber effect and create default mapping.

REACTIVO Software / 4. LED Strip mapping

1. Step / Seach for REACTIVO controller

  1. Click on Settings -> Reactivo.
  2. The first thing to do, find your REACTIVO controller. Click on the Search button or click on Device -> Add new device in the main menu. Type in the serial number (S/N) of your REACTIVO controller and click on Add.
  3. A new device/devices will appear in the left side menu.

Tips & Tricks

The serial number can be found on the bottom side of REACTIVO.

2. Step / Draw LED strip

  1. Select controller from the left side menu.
  2. Click on Add points (+ icon) and draw a line into the drawing area (black rectangle). 
  3. Please, notice, that each line contains a simple arrow that represents signal direction.

! It must copy the signal flow of your physical strips !

Tips & Tricks

You can easily make a PrintScreen and put it as background into the drawing area using Ctrl + Shift + G.

Or click on Background -> Open to add any picture as drawing background.

3. Step / Set exact number of diodes

  1. Choose Edit points tool (black arrow icon).
  2. Click on the number in the strip.
  3. Change the number of LEDs.

Tips & Tricks

To quickly adjust the number of diodes, move mouse cursor above the number in the strip and use mouse wheel.

4. Step / Adding more LED strips

Draw more strips as per step 2 of this section.

  1. Select REACTIVO in the left menu.
  2. Click on Add Points (+ icon), draw a line in the drawing area.

!Notice
You can choose a completely different spot in the drawing area. Draw a second line and you’ll notice thin grey line between the two. We can call it a signal line.

Again, always follow the signal direction of your physical strips (small arrow on the LED strip)

REACTIVO Software / 5. Screen grabber effect

1. Step / Create screen grabber effect

A screen grabber is an effect which grabs your screen and displays it on LED strips.

  1. Launch REACTIVO software.
  2. Do proper mapping. In case you don’t know how to do mapping, return one section back.
  3. Click on the Add Scene button at bottom of the main window.
  4. Click on Add Screen Grabber.
  5. A new effect will be created. If you click on it, you can see that your LEDs start display grabbed screen.

Tips & Tricks

Play some colorful video in full-screen to test the grabber.

2. Step / Additional/fun/important settings 🙂

Default values are okay, but in case you want to tweak them a bit, you can.

  1. Click on the Edit button on the right side.
  2. Grabber effect settings window will appear.
  3. Tick a property you want to change.
  4. Move the slider to change the value.

Tips & Tricks

All changes are immediately applied in the preview window and on LEDs. 

You can create different setups and most importantly, independent properties for each LED strip.

REACTIVO Software / 6. Solid Color effect

1. Step / Create solid color effect

Sometimes, you want to have all strips shine in single color. No problem!

  1. Launch REACTIVO sofware.
  2. Do the proper mapping. In case you don’t know how to do the mapping, return two sections back.
  3. Click on Add Scene button at the bottom .
  4. Click on Add Color.
  5. A new effect will be created. The default color is white.

2. Step / Change color

The default color is white. Why? Because it will help you confirm if you have enough power – if you don’t then your LED strip is losing brightness and white is more yellow toward the last segment.

  1. Click on the Edit button on the left side of the effect.
  2. Click on the Set Color button.
  3. Choose a color by clicking on the color palette.
  4. Tweak the color with moving sliders in the left side.
  5. Click on OK. All changes will be applied.

Tips & Tricks

You can also add your own colors to the color palette if you need some special colors.