I’m new to this so my problem is probably something silly.
I have a D1 mini I got from here: WiFi Mini ESP8266 Main Board | Jaycar Electronics
I flashed it with WLED 0.12 and got it to join my network. The interface shows up as expected when no LED strip is plugged in.
I have 2 sets of wires coming out of the power supply: one to power the D1 mini, the other to power the strip. Then I just have one more wire from the D4 pin to the data wire of the strip.
Given my test setup is only 30 LEDs long, I figured short breadboard jumper leads should be enough.
Once I put it all together, the D1 mini turns on and I can confirm I have 5V at the strip. However, no LEDs are turning on. What is even more strange is that the D1 Mini won’t reset if I press the reset button and won’t boot when the data wire is plugged in. That definitely doesn’t seem right.
I haven’t changed any of the settings and am running everything as default.
Any idea what the problem could be or where to start with the troubleshooting?
Thanks for your help.
However, the ground wire I use for the D1 mini and the LED strip both come from the power supply connector, so they are already connected.
I did also try adding in a level converter (mentioned as optional for longer strips in the diagram) but that didn’t make a difference.
First thing I would do is to reflash the the d1 mini with the web flasher at: https://install.wled.me/ with the b6 firmware. 12 is quite old and no longer recommended. Next I would go into the LED preferences and make sure the data pin is set on gpio 2. Also make sure the power button from the main menu is on. If they still do not work check to make sure you have voltage at the other end of your strip (with 120 5v LED’s you will for sure need to inject power at that far end. If you still have nothing I would make sure you are getting a good data connection. You could also try another data pin like gpio 1 (TX pin on the d1 mini) *make sure you change the data pin in the LED pref’ to gpio 1 though.
I hope that gets you up and running. Also wow! $25 for a d1 mini is crazy pricy. You could buy like 6 or more of them on Amazon for that price.
It’s AU$25, so not as pricy as you might think, but yes, still more expensive than at Amazon.
I did initially have the b6 firmware on it but went back to the first non-beta version I could find as I was having issues.
I am already injecting additional power, I measured 5.10V at the end of the strip, and my data line is connected to the IN side of the strip. I did trim the strip to 30 LEDs as well, as mentioned in my first post, so I’m not trying to run all 120 at once.
I did just try to go back to 0.13-b6 and I still have the same problem. Switching to gpio1/tx pin did not solve the problem either.
I thought I might have a defective D1 mini, so I tried some tutorials to drive the strip from a raspberry pi I had at home, but same problem. So I figured maybe the strip is defective, but trying another one did not solve the issue either.
The wiring isn’t even that hard, so I’m not sure what is wrong here… I did check every time that the power wires were not backwards, and they most definitely are not and never were.
So I’m not sure if it’s something I did or not, but it turns out the first LED of my first strip was defective. Now, because it was crashing the D1 mini every time I was plugging in the data wire to the strip, to the point the reset button wasn’t working unless I removed power to the whole thing, it looked like my second strip wasn’t working either when it was just the D1 mini that was crashed.
This also explains why that first strip didn’t work with the raspberry pi either. I didn’t have the second strip yet when I experimented with the pi, so never tried that combination.
Today I decided to start fresh with the second strip, just in case and everything worked first go and I could address all 120 LEDs.
I tried removing the first, defective, LED from the first strip and adding one at the end so it was still the same length for my display (36 in total) and they are now all working.
I can’t believe the amount of time I have spent troubleshooting this thing just for a tiny detail like this… At least it’s all working now and the mystery is solved
At least it’s all working now and the mystery is solved