Don´t reaching 100% brightness

Questions
1

Hello everyone and thanks a lot at aircoookie for that awesome project : )

I want to set lights for my fish tanks with each:
Three pwm stripes (warm white, cold white, rgb),
H801 Led Controller (esp)
and Homeassistant

My problem:
The fist tank is fully equipped now, but I have the problem, that the brightness is only around 70% at maximum. (i measured around 9 Volt at the white channels)

I will post my settings below, maybe anyone knows what I am doing wrong.
Thanks so much.

wled config06
wled config061920×697 108 KB

Best regards
Fabian

2

Could be a voltage drop issue from to thin gauge wire or/and the distance/length of the wire.

What gauge wire and lengths are you using?

3

Hi akriss, I guess you are right, I will change the cable and look if it’s working.
I am using old network wire (kind if thin, don’t know the gauge) it about 1 meter long.
I’ll let you know.

4

Ok I changed the cable to 1mm² at 1 meter length . It seems to be brighter, but I still have the 9 V :thinking:

5

Whats the power supply?

RGB channels showing the same voltage measurement?

And are you measuring at the end of the strip or from the controller without let’s attached?

6

The Power supply is an 12 Volt 10 ampere device. (LED have 50 watt max).
The Rgb channel showing 12 Volt.
Should I try shorter cable? 1 meter Should be OK…?

7

Yes, couldn’t hurt.
However I’m thinking it’s related to a potential MOSFET failure.

8

Remember analog LEDs are not wired the same as addressables are. The LEDs drop voltage as well, that’s how they give off light.
Depending on where/how you’re doing your measurements, you may see the powr supply minus the LED drops.

Try each RGB channel individually at 100% and see what voltages you get.
You could also try to bypass the controller completely and just ground one channel at a time to see what’s the maximum possible.

You may find the voltages you think are “Low” are just the most you will ever see.

9

Hi divsys,
thanks for your help and the idea.
I took some measurements, and thebresult is, there are no significant voltage drops in system.

For it seems like, the software blocking the maximum output of w1 & w2.

And I found out something interesting: when I change one rgb channel with on w channel: I am getting the 12V on the white. :thinking:

10

Can you actually get 12V if you connect one of your R,G,B channels directly to ground and measure the same way you did before?

Where are you physically putting the probes of your voltmeter when doing these measurements?

If you’re getting full voltage on one channel, but not the others, that points to an issue with the MOSFETs or the software (or both).

11

20231220_182516
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I put them directly on the solding points on the stripes.
And yes, also when I use the stripe without controller. Just a small drop of max 0,5 V in both cases.

And when I use the wled front-end to rise the brightness, I can see, that arround 160 it is not getting brighter…

12

Just a thought, do you have the Automatic Brightness limiter enabled on WLED?

Also the settings for creating White from RGB in LED preferences.

Either of those can “automatically” change your colour settings.

13

No both disabled. (Settings in the first post)
But I appreciate you help.