I’ve used WLED for a while in various installations with 5v strips and pixels. I’m trying to use 12v pixels, cand can’t get it working. I thought it would be rather easy, connect the pixels to the 12 power supply, and use a step down transformer, 12v to 5v to power the nodemcu. take the data out of the nodemcu and run the the data in on the pixels and everything should be good. No such luck. I spent a few hours, and am going to take a break now and try to clear my head. What am i doing wrong. Here’s a simple drawing. As i mentioned, i’ve had great success with 5v lights, not sure what im doing wrong here. The lights illuminate, however they act odd, blink, don’t display the right color, etc. I’ve tried modifying the color from rgb, to tbg, etc, no luck. I’ve seen some people mentione level shifters and resistors, but havent had to use those in the past for 5v lights. Any insight people can bring would be helpful. Ive made sure to specify in wled that the lights are 12v. Thanks for your help!!
I think you need to run a common ground from the mcu to the led’s in order to return the data.
I use a similar setup and have not needed additional components for good results
Alan
You are correct. The LEDs and NodeMCU need a common ground. Your diagram looks sort of correct. I can’t say because the wire colors don’t make sense.
Also, make sure you have the voltage and signal going in the correct end of the string.
And, Make sure you have the correct wires to the correct polarity on the power supply.
It also might be that you need to tie the ground to the 12v and NodeMCU outside of the 12/5v converter rather than running through it. There could be a separation there.
12v lights are fussier about 3.3v data than 5v lights. You most likely need a level shifter or an actual controller that has one baked in.