Hi all, I am pretty new to WLED but have several small projects working so far.
I decided to embed a few strips in my kids room to use as their night light but did not want 2 ESP32s right next to their bed so ran a wire to the fuse cabinet instead, I have a 5v 60a power supply in there with 2 esp32s (one to control each strip light).
When I run the power to the light it appears to work but its inconsistent with the transitions and also I get plenty of unexpected LED flickering. I had never considered that the data line would have a max length until this (I did say I was new ).
The data cable from the esp32 is around 15m (ish),
Is there an easier way to make the current setup working without moving the ESP32 closer?
I have seen some people say skip first LED but that seems a bit of a hack. Is there a component that I can use to make the signal better?
Apologies if this is an obvious thing that I am doing wrong. I have been though other posts.
These data boosters from quinled work well. I run them on the outside of my house. Another way is to add a pixel to the middle of your data line and cover it with black tape.
15m (50ft) for a data booster seems like it may be a big ask. They would likely need 2 and I’m guessing they don’t want something 1/2 way down the data line. But maybe
For the first half of the cable its in an accessible part of the wall but for the second half it runs under floors . I try to resist embedding stuff like these under floors as its a pain to replace.
I might try one of the boosters at the furthest point I can get to and see if it helps.
It would be a good idea to add a level shifter right after the Esp32 and then the data booster down the line as far as you can get, or a data booster by the Esp and one down the line as far as you can get.
There is also the option of using null pixels vs the data boosters. They do the same thing and are sealed. Here are a couple options for those:
If you need/want other items Blinky may be the way to go as they are currently offering free shipping over $50.
If you have any access to running under the floor, just add a small 22/4 (or even Cat5e) data line and use a TxRx data pair. The boards are cheap ($2), one stays at the MCU and one at the strip. No need to embed anything and they will give you reliable data distances easily up to 50m, no level shifters or resistors required.
This will work for me as I 22/4 already run to the strips. In regards to the txrx data pair you mention. Is there another name for this chip as I have googled it and its not quite obvious.
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