When I press the "power button" in the WLED website, strip turns off. Strip never turns back on again

Issues
1

Hello!

When I press the “power button” in the WLED website, strip turns off, but when pressing the power button again the strip remains dark.

I am using a Wemos D1 Mini clone and WS2812B ECO LED Strip from BTF-LIGHTING.

Peek shows what the LEDs should be doing but the LEDs remain dark. The Info screen also reports energy usage that appears representative of the light strip actually being lit…

Interestingly, using the API to turn the brightness to 0 then to 100 also exhibits the same behavior. (wled.local/win&A=0 then wled.local/win&A=100)

I tried the stable release of WLED as well as WLED 0.13.04-b4.

The strip is powered by the same 5v source as the esp8266 (just spliced into the same + and GND).

My config and presets json are here: wled-window issues/1426 · GitHub

Any ideas?

2

You might try to power the ESP8266 from an independent 5V supply (but using common ground) to eliminate any power spike issues. Something other than USB is usually recommended.
The ESP devices are fairly notorious for drawing a large amount of power with WiFi on.
The other simple test is to try again with a small # of LED’s (say 10) and see if the behaviour is the same.

3

Thanks, I will try the small # of LEDs and see what happens. The ESP8266 is currently powered via its 5v pin (from the same power supply that powers the LED strip directly with 5v).

4

Interesting, anything after 16 LEDs and this behavior happens. If I leave at 16 I can turn the strip off and on all I want.

:thinking:

5

Next step is to give the ESP8266 it’s own independent supply (with common ground) and verify again.
If you’re still stuck at 16, less likely it’s a power issue.
If you get past 16 very likely a power issue, especially if you get to full strip length.

6

Thanks for your help so far divsys.

I haven’t tried independent power for the esp8266 yet, but wanted to update on what I’ve tried recently:

I ordered a new 5v 10a power supply, flashed wled on a new WeMos d1 mini clone, and soldered everything up.

Ground comes out of power supply and splits into JST connector for the strip and into the GND of the PCB.

Positive comes out of power supply and splits into JST connector for the strip and into the 5v of the PCB.

WLED is configured for 150 LEDs, with a max amps of 3000 (just testing).

I can set the strip to solid color or any animation and it seems to work as expected. Clicking the power button in the app turns off the LEDs, but pressing it again does nothing.

Interestingly, this behavior continues for anything above 10 LEDs in LED preferences - so more power maybe hasn’t made much of a difference.

7

Running into the same issue here… did you ever find a solution?

8

Unfortunately I never found a good solution. I have the strip and controller connected to a smart plug now and just turn that off and on.

9

ok, thank you - guess that’s also a way to do it :smile: