Hi everyone,
I created an external lighting system due to distance and due to inaccessibility I had to divide the zones each with an ESP that controls 1 or more WS2812 strips.
for the ESP8266 there is no problem because each one controls only 1 strip, but for the ESP32 which control 4 and 2 strips how can I correctly divide the number of LEDs of the individual strips? Because from the app I saw that for each device I can say the total number of LEDs that the ESP will move, but I haven’t found how to tell how many LEDs each output has. For example my ESP32 CHILD BEDROOM has
a strip of 86 LEDs
a 91 LED strip
a strip of 86 LEDs
a 300 LED strip therefore
the total number of LEDs controlled by the ESP32 is 563, but those of each single strip are different.
I would like to “connect” all 5 ESPs to each other so that the effects synchronize and therefore all 9 strips turn on at the same time and
perform the same effects at the same time. How can I do?
by setting the relays I activate or deactivate the strips. Is there a way to turn the stripes on or off at a certain time? For example, that all the strips turn on at 6 in the evening and turn off at 2 in the morning. At home I already use Home Assistant, even if I’m not a great expert in its use, I should definitely install the WLED integration, and then could you tell me how to tell it when to turn the lights on and off?
I kindly ask you to give me your support as detailed as possible, with screenshots of the steps or
explanation of the various steps (where to click, what to write, etc.) because I have no knowledge of the APP and this is my first approach and I would like to make a good work!
You can control pieces of the full strip in WLED by creating “Segments”. A segment refers to a smaller section of the full strip. You define the start and end of that section when you create the segment.
You can create presets that refer to all segments or just 1 (or 2, or 3, etc), you choose by selecting “Checked Segments Only” while saving the preset. There’s many more features that Segments and Presets can give you, check out the KB:Segments and Presets
The synchronize feature lets you connect multiple devices together, KB: Synchronize
Under Config->Time&Macros, there’s Time-controlled presets. More details in the KB: Scheduled Presets
Hi, thanks so much for the advice.
Regarding synchronization help me understand:
by clicking on Sync all the WLED devices present in the network synchronize with each other right?
Or rather if I set 1 WLED as Master 1 and the others as Slave 1 they synchronize with the first, right?
if instead I want 8 of the 9 strips to be synchronized and 1 not, it is enough that in synchronization I set Master 1, then 7 cards as Slave 1 and the 9th card simply as Master 2 so it will work alone right?
I saw that there is the possibility of creating PRESETS, and are these presets prepared starting from an effect and selecting from the presets?
How do I preview the resulting effect? I tried to put an effect from the PC (at home) but compared to the videos I see on the internet I don’t see a bar at the top of the browser that simulates the effect and shows me how it comes out, why? How can I set it? Because wisely to see the effects set I should stay outside the house but it’s too cold​:sweat_smile:!
How can I set 1 effect that remains in memory so that every time I power the board and therefore the LEDs always start with that effect?
How do I set a timing so that they turn on at one time (like 6pm) and turn off at another (2am) every day?
Finally, if all the devices are de-powered and then re-powered, will they maintain the settings and therefore automatically find the synchronizations, presets, pre-set effects at startup, etc.?
Thank you so much​:smile:
1 ) ,2),3)
The Synch feature lets you send Colour.Brightness, and Effect from a Master copy of WLED to multiple Slaves. Everytime the Master changes, it sends the updates to the Slaves. You can pick and choose who gets the info and who doesn’t with Sync Groups in the Config->Sync Settings section.
Presets are a snapshot you can save of all your current Segment, Colour, Brightness, Effects, etc settings. The idea is to play with your LED setup until you get things the way you’d like to see them, then click “Save Preset” to capture all those settings. You can have multiple presets with completely different setups.
There’s a “Peek” button on the GUI that will turn that preview bar on and off.
Under Config->LED Preferences->Defaults there’s an option: Apply Preset ____ at boot. Put your favorite preset# in there.
Under Time & Macros->Time Controlled Presets you have slots where you can choose a Preset to be fired when your ESP board hits a particular time.
Anything you set under the Config section gets saved when you click the Save button for that page.
Anything you configure on the main main GUI page (colours, segments, effects, etc) needs to be saved in a Preset so you can recall it after a reboot.
OK thank you. One thing with Wled I can only access it if I’m in the same network right? So if I’m at home with Wifi it allows me to access it, but if I go out of the house with 4G I can’t connect to it right? Because now I’ve left the house and with 4G the wled app tells me that the device is offline
Hi, forgive me, after months everything works.
I associated the static IP on each of the 5 WLED devices so as not to have problems.
Now unfortunately the internal service technician called me and they will change my modem. If they change my modem I will no longer have a way to find my 5 WLED devices. How can I do? While I still have time and I have this modem, do I have to reset the free IP so that it goes to DHCP and then once they put me the new modem I will reset the static IP for each device?
Thank you
If you set the static addresses in your existing modem, then the WLED devices are using DHCP and your modem is giving them a fixed IP address. In that case, when you get a new modem, it will just give out the next available address.
If you hard coded the address in WLED, that setting will stay and WLED will try to use that address.
A more basic issue will be that the SSID and password on the new modem needs to be exactly the same as the old one. And even if it is, you may need to log back into each WLED device and reset the SSID and password.
Probably the simplest way to deal with this is to install the new modem and see if you can still reach your WLED devices.
If you can - Great! carry on.
If you can’t, try powering them all down and bring them back one at a time. For each one you power up, try the IP address you previously set.
If that doesn’t work, use a phone or tablet to look for a “WLED-AP” access point created when the device can’t find a network. Connect to the AP and you should be able to login to the device and set the WiFi info.
If no AP shows, then try and login to your new modem and see what IP address it’s giving out for the WLED device.
HI. Thanks for your answer.
But therefore if I set the DHCP between 192.168.1.60 to 192.168.1.100 and on the 5 WLED cards I set the fixed IP
192.168.1.30
192.168.1.31
192.168.1.32
192.168.1.33
192.168.1.34
by changing modem I just need to rename the new modem with the same SSID as the old one (and the same password) and re-set the same DHCP as the old modem (between .60 and .100) and the cards should work?
They should, but unfortunately you won’t know for sure until you try.
As I mentioned, the worst case is the WLED device won’t connect with the new modem and you’ll have to look for the “WLED-AP” to reconfigure.
Your best bet is to try this with one WLED device at a time until you get things back the way you want them.
!
