Hi all,
I’m trying to get some SK6812 stripes (RGBW) to work with a WLED ESP32 controller running but I’m outta luck.
The Stripe, when powered on, just goes full brightness and cycling truh all colors in 0,5 or 1 second intervals. First LED is in disco mode (lot faster cycles).
This happen even when the stripes data line is not connected.
I tried a different controller, also a second stripe (same brand and type) but problem remains the same.
Any ideas on what’s going on?
Best,
Andre
pull it to GND if not connected. dont leave data inputs floating
Hey, thank you for the quick reply.
Tried that just now, same behavior 
Update: worked also. You need to put the data line from the stripe to ground to be exact 
Is the Data input directional? So is it important on which end I connect the controller?
Also, do I need a Level shifter for the Data line?
Well that didn’t work out. Got the shifter installed but problem still exists:
Here’s the my board with Buck converter and shifter:
(Please ignore the solder blobs )
Yes LED data is directions and only works in 1 direction.
I don’t see the 100nF (.1uF) ceramic bypass capacitor by your shifter. You need that.
Are you sure your Esp, it’s power and the LEDs power have common ground? They need that.
Hey Jinx, the cap is there on the left side, parallel to the output of the Buck converter. And all devices/parts using the same ground/negative side.
I will triple check that today, but I’m pretty sure that I had that
Cap needs to be at the level shifter power terminals.
You also need to pull down all unused level shifter inputs.
The LEDs are not SK6812 but TM1814. Entirely different chip.
BTW better get yourself a decent controller board. See KB.
That you guys. Much appreciated!
Got it working now. I did forget to set the LED type to 1814. The Board I made did work fine. Thank you all for the input!
Just a short notice: the WLED controller from GLEDOPTO (GL-C-015WL) doesn’t need a level shifter. If you change the LED type to tm1814, the data line voltage changes to 5v very neat!
It has a levelshifter. Changing the LED protocol type does not make it change the data line voltage to 5v. The levelshifter does that regardless of what LED protocol you choose.
