Hello! Please help me!
there is always flicker when taking pictures on the camera (phone or pro). watch the video
I have tried options:
ws2812+esp01
ws2812+esp12
ws2813+esp12
There is flicker everywhere
Please help or tell me where to look
Is there somewhere I need (can) raise the refresh rate?
From the datasheet, it seems like WS2812(B) uses a frequency of 400Hz, while WS2813 and WS2815 use 2kHz.
As you can see, the frequency is different.
I was hoping to get less flicker too, so I installed 2813. But it turned out nothing changed - the flicker is the same.
Hence the assumption that somewhere at the software level this frequency can be increased.
I am actually not clear on the question , might be you get help if you could explain it more . Are you facing issue when you are taking pictures of the strips ?
Exactly! The lamp always flickers when shooting. On expensive lamps, LED screens, the refresh rate is so high that the camera does not see this flicker.
The refresh rate of the 2812 chips is 400 Hz.
The 2813 has a refresh rate of 2kHz. That is 5 times more than the 2812.
But it still flickers when shooting, too.
This means that the refresh rate comes from the code, not from the capabilities of the chip.
So I want to understand where I can raise this frequency in the code?
You got the right idea that the frequency of the camera and devices don’t match and that is why you’re getting the flicker. It’s in most “real” car commercials with head/tail lights. The fake digi ones don’t have flicker. Not sure if the is a solution but I’m probably wrong. M
While I haven’t tried taking videos of my LED projects, it looks to me that your camera has a very fast shutter speed. Have you tried slowing it down?
There is no need to be so skeptical.
Here is a video of both chips.
APA102 on the right. video apa102 & ws2812
As you can see both are flickering.
I used different brightness, different colors, different effects.
The result is almost identical.
Both strips flicker. one more, the other less. BUT! both flicker!
Since you don’t have control of the internal PWM freq of addressable LED’s (either 2812 or apa102 - they’re set by the manufacturer) you might try going the analog LED route. Separate R-G-B analog strips can be controlled with the PWM RGB strip settings in WLED. The PWM freq of those type of strips can be adjusted by compiling a custom version.
No point in banging your head against something you can’t control.
But what do want to bet there isn’t something else happening with that internal processor?
My point is that it’s a black box with specs from the mfg as to how it operates.
Wouldn’t be the 1st time a mfg issued an “errata” sheet down the road when the world complained.
All that said, there’s a whack of this stuff (WLED instances included) out in the real world with people filming/photoing all the time.
Doesn’t seem likely that it all suffers from these issues.
Might be a moment for the OP to examine their assumptions about the devices (both LED and camera) they’re using and how they operate…
Here’s a simple experiment you can try to see if WLED or something else is causing the flicker:
Setup a strip and connect power only to it.
Attach a WLED MCU powered separately, driving data on the pin of your choice and connect ground and data only to the strip.
Set the strip to a fixed colour at some arbitrary brightness - say 40%.
Disconnect the MCU completely.
As long as you don’t interrupt power to the strip, it will maintain the last colour/brightness setting you gave it.
Film and test for flicker.
If the setup without a MCU attached, is flicker free you’re issue is connected to WLED and you can experiment with what it takes to cause the issue.
If the non MCU setup has flicker, you’re dealing with something about your filming equipment.
