Combining Analogue and Addressable strips

Hey everyone! From what I understand it’s also possible to use “analogue” (non-addressable) led strips with WLED, I was wondering if it would be possible to combine both kinds of strips in a single controller. The idea was to have an addressable strip foi doing the colors and the “analogue” strip as a dedicated white led. I’ve been using a SK6812, which has a white LED but the output provided is a little bit too low for my needs. Having a dedicated white led strip would also give a little bit more flexibility in terms of color temperature and CRI.
Thanks in advance!

Hi @jpbelentani, yes it is possible to use the dumb (analog) strip together with the digital WS28xx / SK6812 strip.
However the analog strip uses the color / brightness from the very first pixel only.
So if you would combine both, this will only “correct” for some of the effects like solid, random or rainbow as all the other effects have different colors along the strip.

One word to the SK6812 RGBW strip:
What output power has your PSU ? My SK6812 strips are nearly as bright as the analog 4-in-1 RGBW strips.
Did you check the correct value of Maximum Current in the Led Preferences ?
This could limit the brightness, too.

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Hi, @Def3nder thanks for your reply!

How do I connect the analogue strip and the WS28xx/SK6812 together? I believe using the first pixel value would be fine for what I need.

I’m using a 5v 3A supply and the Maximum Current is set properly, the strip I’m using is just 30led/50cm at the moment.

The main reason for using a separate strip for the white channel would be to be able to use a High CRI, Daylight balanced strips to get more accurate whites.

I know this is not the intended use for WLED, but I’m a freelance photographer/videographer and I’ve been trying to use WLED to make some “Pixel Tubes” (Similar to the Astera Helios/Titan tubes, but without having to spend nearly 10k on a 8 tubes set).

So far the SK6812 has been working fine, but being able to use a high quality strip for the white channel would make things even better. A Daylight balanced strip (around 5600k) would match most commercial lights available, and the higher CRI would have better color rendering which is very important for skin tones.

Would setting up two segments work? The first segment would be the white strip, and the second would be the entire addressable strip.

Yes. The analog LEDs have the same value as the first digital LED afaik. So you can have one segment only containing LED 0 and then a second for the digital starting at LED 1. A minor issue that still persists though is that the first LED of the digital strip will still show the same color as the analog strip. I’m already thinking about a solution for multistrip control, including driving digital and analog strips independetly.

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