Hi.
I’m trying to control this LED strip: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006937738626.html via an ESP-M3 flashed with the current WLED Beta.
The first LED turns white, the second turns green, otherwise there’s zero response. The ESP won’t even connect to wifi in this situation. I have two strips and two ESP-M3 with the same behavior.
The same ESP can control a classic sized (5050) WS2812b strip with no issues (literally just swapping the plug over, same exact setup). All wiring is verified, no mixups, no shorts.
I also flashed an Arduino Nano with FastLED. This can control all three strips equally well.
All devices are using the same power supply for testing (3A 5V supply). The strips are wired to it directly, i.e. not going through any of the pins of the ESP-M3.
To summarize:
Arduino with FastLED works with all 3 strips
ESP-M3 works with 5050 sized strip, but not with either 2020 sized one
Same power source, same wiring used for both
Any ideas please?
Edit: I just tried with an ESP8266 Wemos D1 Mini and that also works. So it’s only the ESP-M3 (ESP8285) that has an issue here. Now I’m thoroughly lost on what could cause this. On both devices, the strip is directly connected to GPIO2, I had also tried a 100 Ohm resistor (only one I had on hand) on the data line with the M3.
Interested in this as well. I have some silicone tube that has a flat edge profile and for a 5mm wide LED strip to go in it and it defuses the light and sends it uniformely out. I am doing this as a project for my hallway just above my baseboards with a 2mm wide slit in the BaseBaord and it pushed in. I can’t get these same WS2812b 5mm wide strips working either. My controllers (ESP32 DeV Boards and my own designed controllers that work everywhere else) will not turn them on. I thought I maybe broke a trace and haven’t got back to it. But sounds like you have the exact same issue with the exact same lights… they are normal WS2812b’s, just on a 5mm wide strip flex PCB instead of a 10mm wide strip flex PCB… watching this thread…
welp shoot… sounds like I may have damaged the strip somewhere, but not even getting any life out of it. I’ll have to play with it some more. Was hoping there was something I was missing… and stupid me, didnt test before putting into the silicone strip. Of course I always test my LED’s first, but they ALWAYS, 100% of the time work before… and so I got complacent and didnt test these ones first, LOL.
https://ae-pic-a1.aliexpress-media.com/kf/He51711ca5402451b9c5049f79fe168d7R.jpg_120x120.jpg_.webp <–this being the strip I got. a 4mm wide/10mm deep that sets a 5-6mm wide LED strip sideways in it and reflects the light up as it defuses it and then out the side. So in my house, I only cut a streight 4mm wide slit to press fit it in… turned out super nice and invisable… just would love to turn them on! LOL.
