I have been trying to get two strips of LEDS working. A 12V WS2812b and WS2815 LED.
I have been trying to solve the flashing issue and no data signal so it was clearly the data line. Over a short distance either strip worked but when over a 2m distance they both failed.
I changed the wires to 20AWG from Cat6 as I read this was good practice
I’m on my fourth logic level shifter ,currenlty the SN74AHCT125 so I could boost the signal
I added a capacitor for the 5v power rated at 25v and 22uF
I added a capacitor to pins 1 and 14 on the SN74AHCT125 (Only had a 25v 10uF one not 0.1uF)
I tried using different MCUs (Heltec ESP32, Wemos D1 Mini ESP2866)
I googled and read everything and nearly gave up as nothing was working over the short distance…
I then tried swapping my 12v LED driver to a lower powered one that I was using elswhere to run one strip. Its only rated at 3A but Bam the flashing issue and data line problem was gone!!
My PSU is a new BTF Ultra Thin LED Light Power Supply DC12V 200W Transformer Adapter designed for LEDS. Is it faulty? Do I just replace this or are their any ideas on what could be cauing this?
Ive tried removing the Earth as a test but the problem persists. (Was thinking of noise)
I didnt think having more power was an issue as the lights would just draw what they need plus my final set up / design was 3 x 5m LEDS all powered from the one unit. Hence my choice.
Any clever ideas or bin it and go with something else??
Thanks in advance 