I’m very new to everything with LED systems and I picked up a quinLED Dig-Quad with two stands of ws2812b LEDs to try and learn a little bit and put together some lighting effects.
Well now I feel dumb.
I got my items together. I got my board hooked up, installed the latest WLED platform, connected to the user interface, changed my LED preserve to reflect the 144 strip, but I’m getting nothing for lights. I’ve connected to data ports 1 and 2 and I’m using power from connection 1 and 3 (since 1/2 is bridged on a fuse and 3/4 are bridged on a fuse). I saved a chase sequence as a preset to test, but I don’t know if that’s the proper route to take.
Where should I start looking? If my power source isn’t strong enough, will it cause all lights not to illuminate or would it fade out over the length of the strip? I’m guessing that’s my actual problem. The lights are going to run off a12v source so I have an attenuator to reduce down to 5v to match the lights. Should I just remove that and allow the quad to do power management on its own?
Thanks everyone! Like I said, I don’t have a clue what I’m doing so hopefully I can learn a little bit through this process.
If at any point you tried to power your 5v LEDs with 12v you likely killed them.
The Dig Quad does not change voltage. Whatever you supply it is what it outputs to the LED power terminals.
It would be easier to find a problem if you could share a pic or diagram of how you have things wired.
Using an ‘attenuator’ is not a good solution. What you want is a buck converter. Attenuators have poor voltage stability with variable loads. Also if you plan on dropping the voltage from 12v to 5v make sure whatever device you are using can handle the required current amperage draw.
Start simple. Start with 1 strip and an LED count in LED Preferences of say 10. When you get 10 to light up correctly increase the value/connect your other strip.
*Also make sure you are connecting the Data In of your strip to the Quad. Data only flows 1 direction.
I will start with that and gather that information. I have not done any direct connection to a 12v up to this point and did ensure that I had connected the data in the proper direction after seeing a reply on this page from a couple years ago (I believe from you actually). It feels like it is a power or data issue. The board lights with power and the WLED user interface shows the preview bar when it was selected so it isn’t that I’ve missed the programming aspect. It just isn’t making it to the actual lights for one of those two reasons, I’m assuming. I never considered reducing the string size in preferences to see if any light at all. That will be my next step.
So you did NOT connect 12V to the controller? And also not 5V? how are your LEDs powered then? If you did connect 12V to the controller and had the LEDs also connected, they are most probably dead.
So far I’ve been doing everything on a workbench rather than wiring it up. The application is going to be automotive so the vehicles 12v will be the main supply and I haven’t hooked into it yet. I’ve been working through 5v so far but the amps have been really low, so I’m guessing that is the actual problem. What I called an attenuator before is actually a “buck converter power regulator”. In reality, I may just go ahead and get 12v lights and cut out the middleman.
so I found out that it was a power problem that I’m still trying to get completely right. Electronics have never really been my thing so I’m learning lots of new terms and measurements for power supplies. I believe my amps are too low with what I was using so I think I’m just going to go with an external power supply all together that is wired into a fused switch bank. Once I figure out what I’m doing, I hope to be able to add more controllers and lights in different ways so going ahead with a power station now will be beneficial in the long term anyway.
I got one strand of lights working great, but I never could get the second strand to activate.
Probably because I never set up the GPIO in the controller
(I’m sure I’m using some wrong terms for things, but hopefully I’m getting them close enough that you know what I mean.)
1 more thing I can offer is that you 100% do not want to connect 12v lights straight to your cars 12 system. Reason: Your cars charging system outputs about 14v and that is a good way to kill your lights. Even if using 12v lights you will want to stick to using a buck converter.
Great point! I run all my lights through a switch board that delivers 12v so that’s not an issue if I go that route on a future project.
I never did calculations for amperage needed for the current project. The draw for these lights is about 17a for both runs and I only had 5 available so I ordered a new buck converter that is 5v 20a and have each section of lights running off the separate 10a fuses on the Dig-Quad. I believe that should fix my problems. I never even considered the amps that these would draw as being a factor, but here we are.
