Cant get my LED's to turn on again

Issues
1

Hi all. I have an ESP32 and WS2812E LED stip that was working fine. I disconnected it to clean it up a bit, but now I the LED wont turn on again.
I have tested with a different ESP, nothing. I tried this ESP on a different LED strip and it worked. I have an external power supply connected. When the ESP turns on, I can see it and make changes, but the LED’s are not lit. I checked the power and the LED’s and there is 5V on the power+ground connection, and also see 5V on the data connection.

I have reinstalled WLED, and made sure that the settings are correct, and they are, still nothing.

Is there anything else I should check?

Any help would be appreciated.

2

Any chance you’re not connected to the data-in end of the LED’s?

Depending on how extensive your “cleanup” was, there’s an outside chance the 1st LED in your strip has gone bad?

If the ESP32 works on another strip, it’s probably good. I’d focus on the strip and/or power.

3

That’s it. I cut of the first 2 LED’s and re-soldered the wires on the “new” first LED and it now it works again.

Are the LED strips connected in Series? I check the voltage at the end of the strip and it was still at 5V on both the data and power line.

4

The power lines (+5V and Gnd) are “Bus” lines, they are single continuous conductors that the pixels tap off of along the strip. The data line should be “broken” by each pixel as the data is fed into the 1st (DIn) and has a separate output (Dout) that connects to the Din of the 2nd pixel.

If you disconnect your strip completely from power and the ESP, you can connect a multimeter from the +5V pad at the start and at the end and measure the resistance.
Both the +5V lines and the GND lines should measure a very small or 0 resistance from end to end.
The Data line should read at least 50Kohm from each end to the other and may very well read infinite.

Let us know if that is not the case for your strip.

It does not make sense to try and measure the data line with a voltmeter, as it carries a dynamically changing signal that most voltmeters cannot handle.