WLED support for W5500 Ethernet expansion board

Hardware
1

Hi there!

I am building an LED pixel strip based art installation.
The last version based on WLED had some performance and stability issues, especially when trying to sync several nodes via WLAN.

So I wanted to switch a LAN based approach.

As I also wanted to do more complex mapping, I ended up using Artnet and an ESP32 to drive the LED strips.

I am using that hardware/SW build to drive all the pixels via Artnet: ESP32-Artnet-Node-receiver/Source at main · mdethmers/ESP32-Artnet-Node-receiver · GitHub

First of all I am happy with this setup and it works fine. I can use several controllers with frame rates of 40 fps all wired via Ethernet.

One downside of that setup is, that I always need to drive the setup connect a quite expensive Artnet software to the system to drive it, e.g. Madmapper or Resolume Arena and also have a MAC/PC there. For some usecases totally fine but it would be nice also to run WLED in same cases.

I was imagining now, that the art piece should have an attended/show mode, where the Mapping software is connected and an unattended mode, where maybe WLED could run. So actually best of two worlds approach.

Therefore I used the Artnet Receiver functionality within WLED with a standard ES32 board connected via WLAN and did the same mapping effects with Resolume Arena. You could see visually quite clear the limitations that come with WLAN. So actually I wanted have a fair comparison I use the same hardware interface to drive the LED strips, also connected via LAN.
The comparison should find out, how much overhead WLED adds the ESP32 when using it in ArtNet mode compared to customer build FW (optimized for Artnet only).
The hardware is using an W5500 Ethernet expansion board. I checked the WLED build for Ethernet support and found out, that the W5500 seems not be supported.

  • Do you think that it makes sense to make such a comparison or will WLED anyhow not be well suited top run more complex mappings (e.g. using 4 ESP32 outputs with 4 Artnet Universes each and frame rates of 40 fps) ?
  • If yes, any ideas how to get W5500 running with WLED?

Plan B if I do not get it running would be:

  • Flash all hardware nodes when the “unattended mode” with WLED and run them over WIFI. Not the best option but would be a fall back.
2

W5500 is not supported. The easiest way to get ethernet support would be to switch to using a WT32-ETH01.

If you are set on using what you have, you would need to use LAN8720 ethernet modules and I think they have to be hacked to work. I think you have to connect the oscillator chip to ground or something. Also when adding on ethernet modules some of the pins are very specific and must be used depending on your controller. Ethernet (LAN) compatibility - WLED Project

I can’t remember if Resolume will let you use DDP or not, but if it does I would use that vs Artnet, e1.31

3

Thank you for your answer!

We will try to make some speed comparison with compatible ETH boards with WLED then later.

→ Currently there is no easy way to use WLED with my current hardware setup.

Two more questions:

  • As far as I have read, there is also no plan to support W5500 ETH boards within WLED. Correct?
  • Is there any possibility to re-use effects from WLED via Artnet? I know that is a quite bold question and totally out of scope of the WLED project.
    So actually make an ESP32 an Artnet sender node (instead of a PC/Laptop connected). This could be achieved with using effects from WLED which then are converted into Artnet or to just record some Artnet data and then make a playback. Hints welcome if there is something ready to use out there. Did not find something useable. The recorder/playback could also be Raspberry Pi based, as there a lot of memory could be installed easily.