Best way to add a 2nd strip?

Hey,

The buddy that I installed this for, is too happy with it and now wants to have a second strip on another level of his cabinet.

What would be the best option to do this?

  1. I solder some wires and connect both strips thought the data line. Then I create sections in the all. The quick start warns about long wires though. What’s “long” in this context? 10cm? 50cm? More?

  2. I connect the strip to another pin on the esp, however it seems wled can’t do that? I can’t find anything in the wiki or the settings. However I installed from the binary, maybe there is something in the source code?

  3. he needs to get another controller and I’ll need to do a 2nd wled installation. It seems that I can sync them afterwards… But syncing also seems to mean that they will always have the same effect / color… Right? Unlike with option 1) where the effects could continue over to the rest of the stripe…

Several ways to do it.

  • Level shifter at output of controller data pin to all 4 inputs of the level shifter should allow 4 separate strips to have the exact same setup. It will require care about the 0V connections of all the power supplies, or making sure the single power supply can do it all.

  • Segments and using a single controller, and having one segment control each “set” of strips. More complicated wiring and WLED configuration, but a single controller.

  • WLED “alpha” software which can drive up to 4 strips from a single ESP32 (can be found on QuinLED.info web site where Quindor describes the QuinLED DigQuad.

  • Other options available, but these come to mind quickly.

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I thought level shifters are for changing signals to different voltage levels? Would it act as a repeater here? And what do you mean with 0V connection? Ground?

Could you elaborate on the section option? How can I set up a 2nd strip as a section of the first?

“A” level shifter is often a chip with 4 inputs and 4 outputs. If a single LED strip DATA pin were connected to all 4 level shifter chip inputs, they would then be able to drive a fair distance, 4 LED strips, all perfectly in sync without adding wifi traffic.

Let’s say LED strip #1 has 100 LEDs, strip #2 has 75 LEDs, #3 has 90 LEDs, and #4 has 60 LEDs.

Configure segments like this:
Segment 1 (or zero depending on if you think 0 counts): 100, start = 0, stop = 100
Segment 2: start = 100, stop = 75
Segment 3: start = 175: stop = 265
Segment 4: start=265: 325
And then configure them to have the same effect, colors, intensity, speed, and save them to segment 16 (so they all get saved).
Other info on how to use segments is already available in this discourse, the WLED wiki, and YT videos.

huggy-d1

Can the WLED “alpha” software be used on a ESP8266 or hasn’t it got enough grunt to power 4 individual outputs? If it can be used is there a compiled binary in circulation like the ESP32?

Link was provided above (QuinLED.info and then where to look / search on the page)