Daisy Chaining LED Strips

I am wondering if it is possible to daisy chain led strips together to be controlled from one module. This is my first time trying to make a project with WLED, and after seeing the other projects i fell in love. I want to put a continuous strip of LEDs across the perimeter of my apartment. The ESP8266 modules I am buying come with three, and I need 4x16ft of WS2812b strips to run the perimeter. I don’t want to have to buy another 3 if i only need one, so i was wondering if it is possible to either go 2 strips per module or 2-1-1. The strips I am planning to buy can be either 300 LED/ strip or 150 LED per strip if that makes a difference. Thank you for the help and I am excited to get this working!

Yes you can run two strips off of one controller. That number of leds should not be an issue.

Could I run all 4 off of one controller? Or do you think the power loss across 4 strips of the LEDs would be the limiting factor?

4 may work. Any more likely not.

If the total number of leds is around 800 you are good. Frame rate is what drives the max number of leds. If you are doing just static colors or very slow moving effects then you can increase the number of leds. Somewhere around 800 Ian the max for 40fps which is generally the fastest that things are running right now.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the limiting factor pixels, not LEDs? My strip, for example, has 60 LEDs/meter, or 300 LEDs, but only 100 pixels because 3 LEDs make up a pixel. If I string 4 sets, that is only 400 pixels which is only half of the 800 max.

Is that correct?

Negative. If you are using the 12V strips that are grouped in three’s, then your LED count is 1/3 of total. :wink:

So your 300 Pixels that form a 5m strip will actually contain 900 led’s. I usually stick with two 5m strips (600 total) per controller and everything runs silky smooth. Even with two 5m strips @ 60 pixels /m, power injection also plays a big part in a successful setup.

TLDR, the real count is not LEDs instead WS28xx (or similar) control chips. So this limiting 800 number is refered to this chips, is irrelevant (to control side) if 3 leds are implemented on-chip (like WS2812 5050 leds) or separated in R, G and B 5mm LEDs components or even grouped (like WS2811 12V strips, which has 3 5050 LEDs per WS2811 chip).

To sum up, in control side, count control chips (ws28xx, sk6812…) not LEDs.

In power side, count LEDs, not control chips.

Byez

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