I’m in the proces of figuring out what led strips to place in my ceiling.
Running some tests before ordering the 10 roll’s which will fit nicely into the grooves of my Rockfon drop ceiling.
I came across the FCOB RGB IC LED Strip WS2811 Addressable 720 LEDs on 24V
Went ahead and bought one strip end of '23
Fast forward, bought an 620 strip in 2024, but couldn’t manage to get it working.
I thought must be the change in leds/m.
Bought an 720 LED in may '24, and same issue’s as the 620.
My digital wires are short, and I even added a level shifter. (not the prefferd 125 one, those arrive tomorrow)
But now it comes:
Change to old '23 strip; all works fine without level shifter controlling from my ESP32 board.
Change to '24 strip, and all is off, there is no way I can get it to work, first LED is always different and much static and flashes and wrong colors.
Anyway;
looking closely at the strips I see that there are differences in IC’s on the LED strip.
There has been a hardeware change, which makes these strips much harder (if not impossible) to control with ESP32.
BTF lightning has also added a warning on their product site that it won’t work with ESP32/WLED.
Did they make changes to only work with their own controllers?
Do these hardware changes explain the difference in results i’m reading, although thinking we use the same strip?
Stabilize your playing field first - working without a proper levelshifter in your scenario is probably going to waste a huge amount of your time.
The fact that the same LED strips are showing big signs of compatibility issues from last year to this year usually means there’s a basic manufacturing issue. The warning about not working with WLED doesn’t bode well either.
The basic code in WLED is based on the Neopixelbus library which has a long history of being one the most stable driver for all kinds of addressable LEDs.
My instincts would say they’re trying to sell a run of goods that aren’t up to snuff. I’d personally call their BS, stay away and/or find another supplier.
Correct Levelshifter is due tomorrow, hoping for the best!
But still, why does the white '23 strip works flawelessly, and in exact the same setup the black '24 strip is not even able to show a solid single color without erros.
While I visually see difference in SMD…
One strip was from Amazon BTF store (the working one)
Other one was from BTF on aliexpress, came in the known “bag” so i never thought of it could be fake?
Just ordered a 720 COB RGB 24V White as well as black PCB.
Let me check if the difference is due tue time beteween orders, or they have a different build for different PCB color.
I will also try to use one pice of white PCB as level shifter for the black strip while awaiting my level shifters to arive, just to see what that does.
I read a lot of people are having issue’s on these WS2811 COB strips, and a change in hardware resulting in huge difference in compatibility would explain the different experiences people are having.
I’d expect the difference to be more due to the 620/720 led variants rather than batch/defect, the series/parallel layout is likely different which has different tolerance on the signal, just like 5V 5050 strips usually work without levelshifter but the 12/24V ones don’t.
Time of events:
white PCB 720 2023, works great no need for level shifters and tested up to 80 FPS
black PCB 620 2024, no way of getting it to work, bust be the 620 vs 720 i thought.
black PCB 720 2024, can’t get it to work not even slightly
So i am comparing 720 to 720, and the acceptence difference for data is huge.
just placed a 2 led piece of the 2023 in front of the 2024 and it works great now with no level shifter whatsoever.
advised level shifters will be tested when received.
"Regarding your questions, what we have known from the tech and production departments, the process is currently upgraded, so there will be some impact on this.
For now, we do not recommend you to use WLED to work with FCOB RGB IC 720 LED Strip."
What shifter?
In the photo with the roll what i have is an i2c shifter with 1k resistor mod. On the lamp the RGB strip is actually chained to the SPI CCT white strip, white->rgb->white->rgb chain, with the first white strip supplied by a C3 with no shifter.
Haven’t tried the RGB without shifter yet.
First try was with these, but failed (also for old WS2811 strip)
Now ordered the 74AHCT125 and works with old WS2811 but not with the current.
BTF has made a change in SMD’s (visible different) and since then they have become very hard if not impossible to control.
Only way I can get the current WS2811 to work is by adding a piece of old WS2811.
I will make some pics of the difference in PCB so you guys can check if you have “old” or “new” type.
Please also post pics of your general wiring, especially for the new 74AHCT125.
It’s very important that chip be wired and connected properly in order for everything to be stable.
Ah yea. Sorry I forgot you were using 24v. If all else fails you could make the F-Amp work if you powered it from your Esp’s 5v pin & ground and only used the Amp’s Data out and not it’s power out to connect to your LEDs (assuming the amp would actually fix your problem)
Update:
starting soldering from scratch.
Still a lot of flicker and error but seems to be better when i touched the ESP32
touching usb casing on the ESP32 seems to make things more stable, so grounding issue.
ESP32 is connected like this.
Can I use the open GND on the top right for grounding? Assuming all grounds on ESP32 are connected. I would like different ground points;
The negative on the 24 to 5 convertor which powers all except the strip
The negative on the 230V to 24V transformer which powers strip and convertor (thus closing the whole circuit?)
Still need to install a resistor on data chanel too, but first let me figure out this grounding issue.
