Hi a complete novice here. During covid i took up electronics as a hobby i have made a few simple light chasers. Coming upto valentins day i decided to make a scrolling text matrix 8x32 using ws2810b 5v led strip that didnt go well as soon as i added power it just started to smoke. I have seen pre made 8x32 matrix boards i was going to connect 2 of these and add extra power at pre made wires. I have a 5v 30w power supply and using esp32 and wled as programme. Do you think i will have problems with this??. I will be using 20awg cable. Would like to make this as its her 60th birthday in march and would be nice to have scrolling txt. Thanks for reading
If you follow the wiring listed here Getting Started - WLED Project then should be fine , for optimal power setup please check this site LED power calculator (wled-calculator.github.io)
Thanks ALDIY i will order parts. Thank you so much.
This is an 8x32 matrix that I built to use as my Tune To sign for my Christmas light show. All 3 injections on the matrix are tied together to provide power balancing and the beginning (18ga xConnect) and end (18ga xConnect) connections are fused. It worked fine. I can’t remember if I ever set it to full brightness as these panels get VERY bright. I doubt you would need to run a panel at anything over 50% brightness. I think I had mine set to like 15 or 20% at night an it still seemed brighter than the other items in my show.
Looks good , and yeah from my own testing those ws2812b eco ( most are like that ) will be with good brightness on less then 50% and use less power .
Believe it or not i have 32x16 of the same type made of two 16x16 only on a 12V 2A CCTV psu stepped down to 5v for both esp and panels without any injections and most of the time it is too much bright for me . It is running like that for almost two years and i used it for all the demos in discord if you even seen that .
Might be i do not like bright colors as cameras do not go well with that ( i have problem with that ) but in general i see some of the guys over thinking the power for matrix might be because they are used to strips or i am a batman
