Hello looking for some advice as I am fresh to the DYI LED. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.
I am looking to make something similar in my basement as Chris Maher’s video.
equipment I am using is as followed:
BTF lighting WS2811 12V 60led/m (5M strip)
BTF lighting 120V-> 12V power supply 20A
18AWG wire
12v->5V converter
ESP32-WROOM-32 with WLED
esp32 wiring (all soldered):
5v to VIN pin
ground to GND pin
data attached to D2 pin
I was able to setup WLED and select the RBG operation to match the strip in solid mode. All animation seem to work ok. my problem is I am seeing random intense flickering of all the LED’s.
Things to note:
12.1v output from supply
5v at esp VIN pin
At start of strip I am reading 11.8V.
end of strip i am reading 11.6V.
Try connecting an explicit piece of wire from the ESP board Gnd to the strip Gnd.
Try a different 5V supply, perhaps a USB 2A supply (make sure you keep the ground wire from the ESP32 to the strip).
You can also try decreasing the total brightness to 40% of maximum to test if the 12V supply is glitching out under load.
I have made two duplicate setups. Both of which are acting the same. All effects are experiencing random flashing as above. Like I said before, the effects work but random flickers are noticed. I am wondering if it is a power issue of sorts. Seems to happen a lot less if my brightness is turned down around 30%.
Thing I have tried to fix:
ran ground direct from ESP to strip.
powered from USB
Long story short it sounds like the signal voltage is boarder line low. I need to trying a level shifter to up the voltage of the signal. I have ordered a pack and will try when they arrive.
What level shifter did you order?
I only ask because there’s a number of I2C based boards out there that aren’t a good choice for addressable LEDs (too slow).
