I am troubleshooting what i think is a power issue with the Dig-Quad board and esp32 / ESP32 AE Touch IR Mic SD 3x hat. I driving 4 ws2812b strands with 300 leds each. I am powering these with a 5V 40A 200W power supply, and have WLED LED & Hardware setup set to enable automatic power brightness limiter and set the Max current to 2000mA. This setup is working. However, what I’m confused about is that WLED is indicating the following on the LED SETUP page - total LEDs: 1200 Recommended power supply for brightest white: 5V 67A supply connected to LEDs (for most effects, ~23A is enough). When I change my WLED settings to match my power supply, the amber led on the Dig-Quad board dims or goes out, the LED strips brighten and I am no longer able to control WLED, as the Dig-Quad appears to go ‘offline’. The only way to regain WLED functionality is to pull the connections to the led strips until the Dig-Quad then functions correctly. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong, but can’t quite figure it out.
The Dig-Quad in only rated up to 30A. it may be why?
Thanks. I didn’t know that and appreciate the info. That said, the same behavior I described happens 5V 15A 75 watt power supply as well. So I’m still unsure as to what I may be doing wrong here with my setup.
When testing that did you try with all 1200 leds attached or did you slim it down to a more reasonable number, say around <500 leds?
I have done multiple testing iterations. All four strands with 1200 total leds. 2 strands with 600 leds. 1 strand with 300 leds. If I enable the WLED automatic brightness to 2000 mA I seem to get normal WLED / Dig-Quad behavior across all testing led numbers. It’s only when I take the WLED power settings to closer to the WLED recommend power supply setting - say 15A, that I loose control of WLED on the Dig-Quad. For instance, the Dig-Quad amber led indicator goes dark and the system in inoperable. I have been using Quindor’s YT video on the Dig-Quad where he has a number of strands connected. https://youtu.be/JIkoUCuXFa0?t=501
You are likely trying to draw more power than your power supply can provide.
THE Automatic Brightness Limiter DOES NOT MEASURE CURRENT USED, OR “PROTECT” YOUR POWER SUPPLY.
Yes I know that’s sounds rather counter intuitive, but the ABL was only designed as a crude method to try and handle overloading your power supply. All it does is decrease the maximum brightness of the number of LEDs being displayed. It does that based on what you tell it about your LEDs and your power supply. It has no idea what the actual load is and whether your PS is dropping out under load.
You can test this easily by connecting 1 strand of 600 and setting it to 25% brightness full white. Disable the ABL and try and increase the brightness gradually. Eventually you will see some colour changes near the end of your strip as the voltage starts to drop (unless you’ve added power injection). If you’re really overloading things, you may see a loss of connection to the DiG-Quad as the it experiences a brownout.
The real way to see this is with a voltmeter across the strip power connections and/or at the Dig-Quad.
The “power rating” of the Dig-quad has nothing to do with what the “board can deliver” the board just delivers data. The rating has to do with the physical wiring connections you’re making from the power supply to the board and then onto your strip.
BTW, another way to avoid the DIG-Quad brownout is to power the ESP board from a separate (smaller) 5V supply and connect only ground and data to the strip from the DIG-Quad. Wire the power for your strips directly to the PS with their own fuses.