I am working on my first LED project using WLED on ESP32 with WS2812b 300 light strip. The strip has JTS connectors on the end. I have WLED on my esp32 and can activate it / configure the LED from my iPhone. I thought I had the hard part done. However, the strip will not light. I have tried 3 different strips. All are brand new.
Here is what I did. I used jumper wires to connect the esp32 to the JTS connector VIN and GND to the strip with the appropriate wires ( wires on outside of the connector - red/brown which is on the 5v side of the strip to the VIN pin and light blue / white on the opposite side to GND pin. I connected the D4 pin to the data line - center in the JTS in the direction with arrows pointing away for the controller ). I powered with a 5V phone charger. All this is exactly like the tutorial videos. I set the preferences to GPIO 4 and tried 10,20,50, 300 light settings and got nothing. I used the power button on the app to turn on /off. I get nothing
I tested the jumper wires from the esp32 and got 4.5v
I tried a 5v power supply (10 a) also and got nothing. I tried to power the LED without any data with the same supply and got nothing. I tested the other end of the strip with a meter and got 5 v reading through the strip. The power supply outputs 5 v by meter I tried powering the strip from either end and the power injector wires and got nothing.
Phone charger and power supply setup were just like the tutorials which magically worked for them but not for me. As I said I’ve gone through 3 brand new strips. ( 2 different suppliers ).
What am I don’t wrong , or am I just really unlucky with getting 3 bad strips
I tried to upload an image of a setup I was able to get working last night. If you can see it, I had my initial setup with an phone charger on the controller side, which originally did not work, and I added the 5v power supply to the opposite end ( which did not originally work alone for testing). With both together , the lights worked as I had hoped. I can control via WLED from my phone. Since it was working with that setup, I tried disconnecting the 5v power supply , and everything still worked. I set the power limit to 1000ma and ran through solid color and effects with no apparent loss at the far end on max brightness with white , or any other combination. I didn’t change anything else from previous non working setups. I have no idea why, but I am going to try the same thing with the other strips I have
Likely bad connection. Those dupont wires generally do not make very good connections. They also are not rated for much current. Try to run too much through them and they will melt in a hurry.
Please if you are going to power your LEDs from another power supply and the Esp from the usb port, disconnect the positive you have running from the Esp to the LED strip. **You can not share positive voltage between supplies. The only thing that should be shared is negative (ground)
Oh and I would not use that barrel jack either those max out at about 3A before they start melting as well.
Thanks for the info. What do you suggest to connect from the esp32 pins to the lights then.
I don’t think I’ll need the extra power from the external power supply after testing the lights , but I was planning on removing the barrel connector and splicing in the wires from the power supply for a more permanent setup if I needed it
If you intend to power them from the usb port don’t go over 1,000mA (1A) or you risk damaging the usb port and or other things on the board. They are not designed to flow great amounts of current through them.
