Flicker with ESP32 and PWM led strip

I’ve been experimenting with running a “dumb” RGBW strip from a ESP32. Unfortunately, I seem to be running into a pretty constant flicker. I’ve tried running this setup with both a very short strip (16ish leds) and a long strip (200 or so). I use an ATX power supply, so there is plenty of room on the 12V rail. I use mosfets to drive the strip.

Just to convince myself that I wasn’t overwhelming the ESP32 to drive 4 pwm channels, I tried just running a “PWM White” strip (only one channel) and I still observed the subtle flicker.

I’ve also tried different ATX power supplies.

Does anyone have suggestions on what I could do to eliminate this? Unfortunately I don’t have an oscope, otherwise I’d check to see if the PWM signal is changing or if it’s some weird voltage drop.

What version did you use? If 0.13.0-b2 please try with the latest build now or use 0.12.

I had similar issues and they where caused by a dependency updated but causing issues in 0.13.0-b2, downgrade to 0.12 solved it for me but I think in main it is already fixed now as well.

I checked all the other reasons for flickering, like bad / not sufficient power supply, not using a level shifter, not ingesting power,…
And went cracy for about 2 days until I tried 0.12 and flickering was gone.

My bad, if I use preview release and not a stable one :wink:

Awesome project and kudos to aircookie and all contributors!

I was using the latest stable (0.12). I actually bought an ESP8266 just to double check that it wasn’t the ESP32 for some reason. I had the exact same problem.

If I had the time, and a scope, I’d honestly look to see if the data being sent out is similar to what the NeoPixel library sends out. Since this uses a patched version of FastLED, I’m a little suspicious of that. It’s very strange that I seem to be the only one having this issue though. Also strange that I can get it to work perfectly fine when using another personal project. Either not many people use rgbw sk6812s or I’m doing something unthinkable, lol.

I have a sim issue I’m sure it’s because I’m not using a level shifter,
Unfortunately it’s stuck in china somewhere hopfuly not far away. I wish there was a easy hack so I could test and rule it out I’m
Also using the rgbw sk6812 on esp32
WLED version 12 latest stable.
Using 4 data pins issue was still present even when just one data pin was used . Only using 5amp psu atm waiting on a ten amp also. But volts are good and LEDs evenly bright

You can use a single LED as a level shifter.

Unfortunately for me this happens with or without a level shifter

One type of flashing was fixed in latest code.

I’ll give it a try and report back

What version was that I’m on latest stable version 12

tonyno Ok I might try that thanks

You would need to compile it, or grab one of Serg’s bins