Understood
If you are running all 4 strips to a wago, do you have the space to just run them to 4 data pins?
If you can run them to 4 pins you would be able to do a lot more effects and even have them chase from one to the next. With them wired in parallel the way you have them they will all do exactly the same thing. Ex: LED1 lights on string 1 it lights the same on the other 3 strings.
-Actually even with my diagram there may be a power issue at the far ends as I messed up when making it, thinking that the 150 was for 2 strips (I don’t know why I thought that lol), But it does stand a slightly better chance as it can pull voltage from 2 directions. Still very well may need power at the tops though.
Make sure you test your setup because only powering 160 5v LEDs from the beginning you may (WILL at higher brightness) run into flickering and/or the far end being dimmer than the beginning. You can’t get that much current to travel through the thin traces on the LED strips when powering from 1 location.
Sounds a good idea. I guess I can connect the four data cables directly to the pins instead of using a wago connector. Only thing is how do I control all four pins from the app? As I already had the problem with connecting to the one pin which is what my initial question was when I started on this group and you managed to solve. Other question is what kind of wire would best be suited in terms of gauge. Cheers
With WLED once you define the GPIOs you want to use and how many LEDs are on each pin, they are treated as one long continuous strip (just as if you had wired everything in series).
To address one section or another, you create segments that address the numbered LEDs for that section.
As far as wiring for data, there’s no power involved at all so you can use light wiring in the 20-24AWG range. Doesn’t need any of the voltage drop considerations you see with power wiring
Sorry I didn’t make my self clear, I was meant to say what gauge wiring for the power supply. Only thing is I have wired a cable behind the skirting board which is a 8 core cable. Each colour in the cable has 7 strands. Just wondering if that’ll be ok? Not sure that’s why I thought I’d ask.
Need more specs to be sure, but my instincts say alarm wire is going to be too light for power purposes.
There’s some good voltage drop calculators in the KB that will point you in the right direction.
You need to think in terms of the maximum power your LEDs will require and the total length of power cable from your main supply to the strips.
In very rough terms you’re talking a worst case of 30-50W of power for each 150 LED strip. The fact you’re planning on 5A fuses, means you plan on around 5A of worst case power for each strip.
The distance from your supply to each strip will tell you how much drop you’ll get depending on the size of wire you choose. Think about at least 18AWG wire, longer lengths may need large wire.
This is what I manage to find for the specs of the wire. The distance from power to led is about 2 metres max. The data cable doesn’t need to be thick like you mentioned but what about the ground cable?
As always divsys provides great info, and likely knows more than I.
Just want to be clear; The 5A fuses were of my design where power was split into 4, not the OP’s.
If you want to run a single line from PSU to a wago splitter that power line would need to be fused for total current draw of the LEDs and correct wire gauge for such current. (make sure that wago can also handle that current). This all depends on what your demands are and if you want to be safe having your wiring capable of worst case scenario of 100% brightness on White.
Your power usage will not always use such a high draw and may never (with powering from only 1 end of a strip I would lean towards never as the strip will never be able to pass that much current), but do you want to know that your wiring is safe at the max level or are you good with a lighter weight setup that you will (hopefully) never turn up to max power values is what you need to decide.
For me if it’s something on the wall in my home I want max safety and would look to spec items according to that. Now if it were for a temp thing or an outdoor holiday display where I know for sure that I will never have anything running over 30% brightness and never solid white. I would be more inclined to down size my wiring for the reduced values. still using proper fuse values for the used wiring
Do you plan to run these lights all White? If Yes do you plan to run them at full brightness (it never will when powered from 1 end but anyways…)?
I would look at running 12 awg from psu to wago with 20A fuse, and 18awg from wago to strips. Make sure the wago is rated for 20A.
To connect to 4 data pins you would just wire those pins to your level shifters inputs and run from the shifters output pins to each of your strips. Just like with 1 pin.
What shifter did you order? If it was the: SN74AHCT125N it has 4 I/O’s
I’ll message divsys and see what he makes of it. But I’m pretty sure you have covered a lot of things which have helped. The level shifters I’m using are the ones in the pic. I think I defo need to get a better gauge wire, as I didn’t think of that because in my mind I thought they only LEDs lol.
Hahaha. You guys are awesome. The info I’m getting from you, you don’t know how much I appreciate it. I think once I get all the things together and sorted and setup I might just end up becoming an electrician. I’ll check out the level shifters later on. Is it worth trying the lights without a level shifter then possibly add one after? Cheers
@jinx has given you nothing but excellent advice IMHO.
To summarize:
Your data connections can be handle 3 ways:
A single GPIO shared “equally” among 4 strips so every strip always shows the same pattern.
Use 4 GPIOs to drive each strip with it’s own data line.
Wire the strips “front to back” so the end of the 1st strip can easily connect to the start of the 2nd, end of 2nd to start of 3rd, etc. (using a single GPIO).
From your POV after all this is up and running, #1 is the least useful and probably more difficult solution. It may seem simple to have only 1 data connection, but to make it work reliably could be harder than just doing #2 or #3 properly.
#2 or #3 will look the same to you when using WLED. The software will give you one long strip and you can control each section with segments. If you want, you can have each strip display the same things just the same as if you wired like option #1. But you’re not limited to that and can come up with any other patterns you may wish.
As far as levelshifters, take heed of @jinx’s advice. Easier to do properly than try to figure out what went wrong.
Power requirements are well discussed above.
Remember the Laws of WLED:
Power for your LEDs must come from your power supply, with proper wiring.
Data for your LEDs must come from your data supply (ESP) with proper wiring.
Proper wiring for power is not the same as for data and vice versa
There’s 2 types of WLED users: those that use proper levelshifters and those who will
To some people yes. To those of us that don’t want to chase possible issues and like reliability No.
Also if you plan to split 1 data line to more than 1 strip it for sure will not work without a shifter as you are taking that already below spec signal and reducing it further by splitting it.
Once again guys I’m honestly appreciative to your sound advice. I’ve ordered the stuff just waiting on it to come and see what I can do with the solid advice. Cheers once again. Never knew the proper way of doing. Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.
Jinx has been excellent. I couldn’t even get passed level one which was to light up the lights. He got me sorted on it. I like to try something new and challenging and I think you guys have really helped. Cheers
Hi jinx managed to get all the stuff together just a 18 gauge wire which should be coming today. I’ve connected 3 led strips each consisting of 300 LEDs to a power supply using a fuse box with 5 amps on each strip. I’ve put the lights on and tried a solid colour to leave them on one colour. When I do this the lights still keep switching colour, even so one of the strip switches off then goes back on after a bit. I then set the setting to 150 LEDs on each strip and they still doing the same thing. I can’t leave them to a stable white colour. I’ve not used wago clips just wire up. The other thing is how do I connect a level shifter to the lights? Do I need to connect a level shift to each strip of lights and from what point do I connect it? From light strip to esp board and what wires to I connect. I got the level shifters as shown in the pic. Also if I decide to inject power into the lights shall I do it midway or at the top? I am making the lights in single strips all connected to each different gpios. If I inject power with wires at the top can I solder them to the power wires at the start on the stripper would I have to run them back to the fuse box and PSU. I’m sorry I’ve just been going on, but I just need to get this done and powered up and finished. Thank you once again Jinx
Yes each strip would get connected to the level shifter. The shifter should be close to your Esp controller. I would connect the 5v pin of your Esp to the shifters 5v and from your Esp’s ground pin to the ground(s) of the shifter. I don’t have a good pic of any of my smaller controllers, but here is one of a board that has 2x level shifters on it for 8 outputs. Note: the 100nF ceramic capacitor(s) by the top of the shifters.
You don’t need to connect anything from your light strip to the Esp.
You need to connect data from the outputs from your shifter to the data in of your strips.
You need to connect Positive 5v from your fuses to Positive 5v of your strips.
You need to connect Negative Ground from someplace (normally from the PSU or from a common grounding location) to Negative Ground of your strips.
You need to have a common ground to your Esp, Level Shifter, LEDs and LEDs PSU
Either should be fine. I would connect to the far end, while divsys would likely disagree and say midway
Reasoning:
Far end: It gives you power at both ends…
Middle: Allows that injection to send power both directions.
The BEST answer would be beg, middle and end. That would give the greatest ‘balanced’ load… But then you could argue what about the middle of each half…and so on and on and on…till you were down to adding power between each pixel
Yes you can do that as long as the wires from the PSU to that junction can handle the current. You will want to change your fuses to 7.5A and not 5A at that point for 150 LEDs if over 160 LEDs go to 10A
