Did you try shorting the R0 pads on the right side receiver board?
I just tried that, no change.
You mention ‘bonding all grounds’ - though some are missing from your drawings. IMHO, it’s important to have a ground from the node, tied as close as possible to the ground from the data. aka “without a good ground, you won’t have good data.” (dark blue arrows). Also wouldn’t be bad - if everything is running at the same voltage - to tie the node power in, too (lighter blue arrows).
I am running 12VDC pixels, but looking closer I saw that the VDC input on the boards are 3.3-30 V. So now I have all the 12VDC tied together and all the 0V tied together.
TxRx leds still flashing but same result. The pixels are still just solid white.
I saw on another message board somebody with a similar 485 pair had to install a level shifter after their receiver as it outputs 3.3v on the data pin instead of the required 5v
Normally when I get Solid White on the LEDs with a TxRx pair inline, it points to an issue with the A+/B- lines being reversed or a bad connection on one end.
The simplest “Static” test for those setups:
Disconnect data at both ends.
Connect the Tx Din to 5V (or 3.3V)
Measure to Rx Dout, it should be 5V (or close).
Connect the Tx Din to 0V
Measure the Rx Dout, it should be 0V (or close)
That proves the TxRx pair are doing their jobs.
You should then be able to reconnect the data lines to the ESP (Tx end) and LEDs (Rx end).
For my setups, if I can pass the static test the setup will work 99.4% of the time.
BTW - I’m not a huge fan of those style of boards.
I’ve used them (still have a supply lying around) but they fail more often than the more basic style with on board protection.
Just my $0.02
I will test that. Thanks.
What boards do you prefer? I really want something that is reliable over a long period of time.
I’ve had better luck with this style:
TTL → RS485
They don’t have a 5V regulator on board, but a pair needs less than 0.5A so it’s pretty easy to get a buck converter or auxillary supply for that. You can even use a single supply at the Tx end and just carry the 5V power up to the Rx end. The current requirement is so low that voltage drop over 10m is very small with Cat5 wiring.
Definitely remember the termination resistor, that’s one thing the Static test won’t measure.
Easiest way to test that is with power off, measure resistance from A+ to B-. A single board with nothing else across A/B should measure 120 ohms.