It takes me awhile to understand tech so bare with me please. So I’ve installed 12 volt ws2811 strips all the way around the roof line. Which makes a total of 1926 individual LEDs divided by 3 would be 642 pixels. At least I think that’s what a pixel is every 3 LEDs that can be addressed since the strands are 2811s? Anyways, I have a single 30 amp 12 volt power supply running them. 12 guage wire with power injection every 16 feet or the beginning of every strip. Also a Esp32s flashed with wled. The esp32 and power supply share the same ground. So I get them to work but I’m struggling with the led preferences in the app specifically the power options. When I set it to 12v 35mA per led they’re very dim. When I uncheck the limiter they flash erratically and freeze at times. Ive adjusted the mA per led value with no success. Do I set the maximum current to 30,000 mA since I have a 30 amp power supply? Also I don’t have info for mA per led I’m pretty much guessing at this point. I have put a generic controller on them last year and they were flawless, bright and vivid. But lacking the options of wled. Again sorry for the weird description.
The big guess here would be how much power does your setup actually draw in the worst case (100% White).
My rule of thumb is to allocate 0.3W per LED, giving 1926*0.3W => 578W total power.
For 12V LEDs that means 578W/12V=48.2A maximum current.
At full power, I’d guess your power supply will be a little small.
To test this, I’d disable the ABL completely and try to light smaller segments that don’t necessarily start at the beginning. You could create a segment that goes from 500 to 575 and drive that at varying brightness to make sure you have proper data control.
Once that works, try adding more and more LEDs in your segment(s). You might want to manually limit the brightness as you get near driving the full strip to make sure your power supply is up to the task.
Measuring the voltage at the strip injection points is often a good idea to see how well your injection is working.
Remember, the ABL doesn’t actually measure anything about your setup, it just calculates what it thinks your LEDs are drawing based on what you tell it and drops the brightness when the calculations go over the limits you’ve set. IMO it’s better to make sure your PS is good enough first and then add the ABL if you want to.
I’ll give that a try. I do have a new 50 amp power supply as well but was nervous it would be too much. I would like to add more strips eventually is why I got it. Do you think I should try it after I do the testing you suggested?
Also what about a sacrificial led? Been watching videos on that but uncertain I fully understand what it boosts exactly.
Power supplies provide the power that the LEDs request based on the the brightness you tell them to produce. A supply rated at 50 amps means it can deliver 50A at the rated voltage (12V in your case) if the LEDs demand it. As long as your wiring is good enough to handle that amount of current through the various injection lines, the LEDs will take what they need based on their brightness.
If you have a 100A supply connected and the LEDs only need 35A, they only draw 35A. The supply doesn’t “push” a current level, the LEDs “pull” what they need.
Sacrificial pixels are a form of level shifter.
The data line on the LEDs runs at 5V (even your 12V devices) while the MCU runs at 3.3V which is sometimes “good enough”. Depending on how far your MCU is from the first pixel in your strip (and what kind of MCU you’re using), the data to that first pixel can get noisy and lead to flickering or odd displays. A level shifter converts the 3.3V signal to the 5V level the LEDs require, although long distances from the MCU to 1st LED can still be an issue.
After that 1st LED the data signal is regenerated to 5V by each LED, so you don’t need to worry unless you have a long data distance to the next LED in your strip.
There’s a bunch of information available in the Knowledgbase
Thank you for that information especially on the power supply. I finally understand that part of it. And I will do further research on the data line.