I am not an expert in anything but enjoy tinkering with esp8266 and Xlights. I have a Pi running Falcon. I have used some DMX controllers in the past mostly for on/off and dimming but never pixels. Am interested in hearing your experience with Wled and E1.31.
I am xlights user!
Have you had many issues connecting Wled devices to Xlights? I am just starting to work with this combo. Have Pi/Falcon unit running some older DMX switches. This seems like a much easier solution.
Yes I did have some various issues with the connection stability. I have not tried wled with xlights for 6 months.
If I remember I was having trouble when data would start to send wled would not start displaying it automatically. I had to go to the web page for wled and click on things. I plan to try again But have not done so yet. FYI My fix was to use espixel stick.
What issues are you having?
I have not been able to get them to works. Did you change any settings in wled to make it work? I can get Falcon to see the device but nothing happens when I send to it.
I was able to make it work but issues like this were similar to what I faced. I was used to espixel stick which just starts accepting data.
Wled required power to be on as well as a few other things. I don’t remember it has been quite some time.
I want to try the latest release but since I mostly stream from xlights wled has more than what I need. I love all the effect but if xlights has issues than its a no go for me.
Hi
The Latest release of Wled is fantastic . It is the first release that I managed to get use of
user mods with .
I don’t use xlights or FPP but I do know a little about holiday lighting and e1.31 .
My first question is what pixel type/protocol are you using ?
Did you use a WLED.bin or Source files to load Wled on your device ?
Some settings tips that may help .
Be sure to save each selected settings .
Wifi->
You need to make sure your Wifi settings are correct .
Ip(static) and in range ,subnet and gateway . You may want to change the AP channel also , channel 1 seemed to be a trouble spot for me .
Sync->
Make sure you select multicast (preferred) if that is what your broadcasting from your FPP.
Aslo select the correct Start Universe # for the e1.31 you are sending.Default is #1
LED Preferences ->
set the correct # of pixels
Disable the Auto brightness if you are using a good external power supply ,
or adjust it to suit your needs .
set the color order of your pixels .
If you are powering the pixels and device from a single/same source , v+ and v- from the supply go to the device | data & gnd from the device to the pixels | v+ from the supply to the pixels .
Also make certain of the device data pin you select .
good luck .
I just tested the 0.10.2 version! It is working great with xlights. I am now able to have it setup like I want!
More testing and learning the interface, but I can say Wled is a go! Thanks @Aircoookie seem to have fixed all the minor issues I had last season!!!
I use both ESPixelStick and WLED, and use XLights to drive them during special events.
Recommendations when using WLED:
- Use DDP (not E.131 or others)
- Do NOT use multicast / broadcast
- Have most devices on wired network
- Limit WiFi to a few devices (3-5 usually can work OK)
Why not multicast/broadcast?
In short, broadcasts (and to some extent multicast) wireless transmissions occur at the rate of the slowest connected device.
Longer version: Everything is working great. You connect your cell phone, and test everything. Life is good. Then, half an hour later, you notice things are stuttering. You pull out your phone and start poking at stuff. Even though you are 100% positive that you didn’t end up changing any settings, the problem goes away. (or, alternatively, you’re 100% sure you just needed to adjust the antennas, and that’s why it’s now working great again.)
Then, half an hour later, you check and stuff is stuttering again.
What’s really happening? Your phone’s WiFi goes into low-power mode, but is still connected to the same WiFi as your ESPixelStick/WLED devices. Low-power mode transmits and receives at a much lower rate. As a result, all the broadcast traffic has to be sent at that slow rate.
Implementation details and firmware bugs mean this can also affect multicast, and sometimes will require a reboot of the access point to restore full-speed broadcast/multicast. Fun, eh?
This is one reason that it’s critical (when doing real-time animations) to have a separate WiFi network just for your lights, and to ensure your phone is only connected to that network when it is actively being used. Oh, and avoid using broadcast / multicast … it’s really much more trouble than it’s worth, unless you’re setting up many mirrors of each universe.
XLights has its quirks, but provides 2D animations, video conversion, and so much more. It’s definitely the “next step” for those who are looking to expand what they can do with WLED.
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Thanks for posting your experience. I am also trying to get xLights working with WLED and running into a bit of trouble. I tried configuring the controller with DDP protocol as you suggested but am not seeing anything in WLED. When I set the controller as E.131 and output I at least get a message in WLED stating “WLED is receiving live E1.31 data from 192…” so I know xlights is at least communicating with it, but the lights are all blank.
Is there some additional steps needed to get it to work with DDP? Thank you!
Been a while since I set one up but should not be additional steps. You will need to To rerender possibly.
Also you may not have some of the mapping correct in ddp. The universe/channel stuff. E131 and ddp have some slightly different terminology.
Xlights and wled is great.
The visualise output setting from xlights that talks to wled is great.
I hade no problems setting up xlights and wled
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Second year using xlights. I have 13 WLED controllers (v0.12.0) running on their own wifi network. Works fine. I’ve stuck with 20fps sequences with no noticeable lag. Still using e131, but will investigate DDP after this Christmas season.
Anyone have any success with WLED and xlights? All I got is a bad refresh rate. Lagging pixels. And only running 650 5 volt pixels at 18 mAmps. With a 30 amp 5 volt power supply with 5 power injection points
Just playing with it, but seems fine. Using DDP and not E1.31.
I tried it on mac mini , it works but the mac app is very very heavy to run and the gui is not a
user friendly at all . DrZzs has a very good videos on xlights and he made a recent video about ledfx
I have also tested ledfx on Linux and it runs fine and it is very simple to use . I think xlights is a bit more advanced if you need that but music reactive function ,network sync and effects works very well with ledfx which is enough for me .
Please check DrZzs and try ledfx , ignore this if you already know about ledfx
[Edit : xlights slowness was related to our environment , after a reboot , its working fine ]
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For full disclosure, this is my first year using WLED …and trying to run xlights on it. I am using esp 8622 with e1.31 and can get what Im sequencing to appear on my LED matrix , but it shows up double. On scrolling effects they will come in from the opposite side and on static moments it overlays backwards.
I checked for any layer inconsistencies, starting position, etc and did the “check sequence” which it finds no faults in xlights showing what I want/expect in the preview. Now in the scheduler, the log file mentions often the error I am outputting at 200%, which seems accurate if it is indeed overlaying. I’ve checked my segments among other WLED specific settings and still drawing a blank.
Hi and welcome to the forum 
No need for any disclosure , we all learn from each other something new everyday .
For xlights , I am testing it with 8x32 ws2812b Matrix and it took me a lot of testing just to make the effects works correctly ( still not 100% ) . i can test anything you wish to do and I am sure we can help each other .Just a note that i am running xlights on mac mini and it is very very slow so please bare with me
What is your matrix full info ? and how exactly did you set it up in both xlights and wled ?
Do you have something specific you want to do with the matrix and xlight or are you
just experimenting like me ?
I just took this video to check if this is what you are expecting from your matrix . So is it ?
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Thanks for the reply and welcome!
It’s 10x50 of individual strings. Xlights has the matrix correct when I check on the addresses in the layout tab. It previews correctly, it’s hard to see it test from the sequence tab and any my WLED outputs are correct.
Here is a quick video of what it’s doing, and I’ll get some more info that may assist in nailing this down.
Here is WLED running “running” doing it’s thing
sure , I think this is going to be a nice thing to do .
What we can do is get the config of your xlights and wled LED setup and I will do the same and send it to you shortly .
