WS821x LED not working

Hardware
1

Hi,

this is my first touch with WLED. I have a controller board with ESP8266. Flashing everything was OK, I can connect to wled UI. I have connected LED strip (WS8211 12V - 1m around 60 LEDs) to 12V and GND and the DATA to GPIO4 (directly to ESP8266 GPIO4). Only 3 LEDS are always on, and sometimes I can change the colors and brightness. After a while I’m not able to change the colors and brightness. The 3 LED are always on and no changes. I have soup the LEDs to 60 pcs. but no changes. Is there any other setup necessary?

2

Make sure you have both a data and ground connection from the ESP8266 to the strip.
What kind of controller board are you using?

Can you post any pics of your setup?

3

Hi,
GND is connected to my controller and LED strip. I have now connected a WS2812B (5V) strip and everything is working fine.
I have read something, that for the WS2811 a level shifter could be necessary, is this true? Maybe this is the problem.

4

Certainly worth a try, the KB has some good info on level shifters (don’t get the cheap I2C type, too slow).

5

Shifters are usually required as the ESP uses 3.3v for data and strips 5v. :wink: