I just added two more light strings (WS2811) on my dig quad but they only have a light orange glow. I’ve got them plugged into lines 2 & 3 (GPIO 3 & 1) with all 3 them counted out (146, 189, 100) power limiter is off, segments for each channel, no joy 
. Line 1 still works, but 2 & 3 just have the same dull orange glow. What am I missing!???
My initial guess is that you haven’t configured WLED and/or your segments correctly.
Orange is the initial “default power on colour” assigned to LEDs unless you tell WLED differently.
Remember, WLED treats added GPIOs as if they were added to the initial string.
If you started with 146 and put another 189 on a new GPIO, those new LEDs will start at address 147…335.
Post your config settings if you can’t get it to go.
I also added a 4th line for test strip (12 LEDs) and it works fine along with line 1. The third line is now displaying random pastel colors and the first few LEDs are blinking in different colors. This line has a 70ft cable lead and power injection. Uhg, this is so frustrating
Is the dig quad an ESP32 or 8266?
How long are your data lines to the strips?
Can you do up a simple wiring diagram of how you’ve got this laid out?
That is a wicked long way to the first pixel without using a data booster (or 2) or RS485 Rx/Tx modules. Your best bet w/out adding a booster would be to change the resistor switch on the board from 249 Ohms to 33 Ohms.
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I remeasured it and it’s close to 85ft of cable to the LED strip. I just ordered the booster. Hopefully that fixes it. I’m in Alaska so I’ll probably see it next month some time 
Oh and yes an EP32 on the dig-quad.
Thanks for your help guys!!!
You could also look at the RS485 option, better guarantee of performance IMHO, and probably same price or cheaper.
Check out the KB: Long Data Lines
Cool, I’ll order one of those from Amazon and use whichever one gets here fastest. I’ll throw the other in my tool box as a spare or for future use.
I’m also thinking I may just go ahead and install more LEDs on another roof line in place of the long feed wires. Would that solve the booster problem or would I still need it? This would add about 150’ish LED pixels to the 97 already in place. Lead wire would be roughly 20ft and I’d have about a 10ft jumper between the two LED strips.
“Boosters” and in some respects impedance resistors are a kludge for trying to get a 5V data stream to remain clean over long and poorly chosen data wiring. Can they work? Yes. Are they guaranteed to continue working? - Er maybe.
Differential pairs are designed specifically to address the distance issue.
They’re cheap and easy to implement, so no reason not to.
When the data line distance from your MCU to the strip and/or from the end of one strip to the start of another gets to 10’ or more, time to consider a TxRx pair.
Just my $0.02
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Thanks divsys, I’ll give them a shot. The 485’s are supposed to be here today according to Amazon. Next noob question: How exactly do you wire these with the 3 wire LED wire? I have the power injection wire too. Also, I have a 12v system not a 5v, but the data wire is 5v out of the dig-quad correct?
You can think of a TxRx differential pair as a “black box” for your data line.
You feed data from the Dig-quad into the Tx board on its “TX” pin. Connect the A+/B- terminals plus ground on the Tx board to a new data line (at least 3 wires) going to your strips. At the strip end, you connect A+/B- and ground to the Rx board and get the data for your LEDs from the “RX” pin. The data line does not need to be a large gauge wire as it handles very little current.
As always, ground is common for the whole setup. As far as power goes, most all boards are 5V so at least at the Tx end you need to have that available. I often use a 4 wire cable for TxRx data as I need 3 anyways ( A+, B-, Gnd) and the 4th is a convenient way to handle 5V power from the Tx end to Rx end. As long as the distance is not very long (30m or less) you don’t have to worry about a voltage drop on that 5V line as it typically needs 100mA or less.
The other alternative is to install a small 12V->5V buck converter at the Rx end to get supply power for the Rx board. Again, it’s a low current draw so it doesn’t need tobe anything more than 1A capable. If you were using a TxRx pair to jump a long data gap between your existing strips, you’d probably want use the buck converter technique (at one or both ends).
BTW, what RS485 boards did you pick?
I picked the first one that come up on Amazon. Do you have a picture or diagram of how these are wired?
Looks like those are an even “more deluxe” version of the ones I’ve used in the past.
If they match the specs I see here: Amazon RS485 w/voltage regulator They have an on board voltage regulator, so you can power them from 12V directly. They’ll output 5V data just as the LEDs need.
As far as a wiring diagram, the bottom of the board has a reasonable picture: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81uXj6tP1vL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
You should be able to match that to my previous description:
TX board near Dig-Quad
Vcc - 12V
TX GPIO data out from Dig-Quad
Gnd - 0V
A+ - diff data wire1 to Rx board
B+ - diff data wire2 to Rx board
E - diff data wire3, to Rx board connect to Gnd
RX board near LEDs
Vcc - 12V
RX data out to LEDs Din
Gnd - 0V
A+ - diff data wire1 from Tx board
B+ - diff data wire2 from Tx board
E - diff data wire3, from Tx board connect to Gnd
One more thing to watch for with those boards, they have a jumper spot labelled R0 in the upper left of the board (below the screw terminals). You need to solder across those two pins to enable the on board 120R0 termination resistor. You’ll want to enable that.
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Wow! Thank you!!!
Alright the board got in and I just picked up 100ft of cat5 wire. Decided I’d test it from the comfort of my shop before putting it up outside in the cold. Good thing because I don’t have lights. Here’s pics of the tx board on the dig-quad side then the rx side with some test LEDs hooked up. As you can see there’s a txd light on transmission side but no love on the receiver end. You’ll see I used the white wire on tx side then the rx wire is red and hooked into lights. Is that right or should I connect to the same color wire on receiver? I did jump the R0 resistor like you said. What am I missing???
Sorry I have to add one pic at a time …
OMG, I just realized I switched the power and data wires. Also need to inject power to end of strips. LOL, works great now!!!