100 Addressable LED Arduino Uno Stranger Things Project Help needed

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry to have to ask a newbie question, but I have tried everything else and I don't know what else to do.

I am trying to put together this instructables project:

I have two strings of these lights:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/WS2811-Digital-Individually-Addressable-Advertising/dp/B07QYW5X78/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=RGB+LED+Strip%2C+WS2811+Digital&qid=1566919931&s=gateway&sr=8-5

I have attached the Green data wire to pin 6 as instructed, and the white ground wire to GND on the Arduino Uno board.

I have all the drivers etc on my computer and have uploaded a Blink sketch to the Uno board, and this works, albeit fairly faintly.

This is the only thing I can actually make happen and none of the other examples will light up anything else.

I have tried adding extra power, but if I plug in the other end of the lights they all just come on bright white. The same happens if I try to connect the 5v cable to my uno, or power the uno using a seperate power source.

I have tried gooling and trawling through youtube videos and no matter how many I follow, I appear to be doing the right thing but nothing is working.

Help! What am I missing?

Start here

Help! What am I missing?

This is a well known issue. The problem is the "be nice" policy that Instructables.com have for comments on published projects. It means that inexperienced builders can publish projects that worked for them by luck, and no-one is allowed to criticize them by pointing out what's wrong. Then other equally inexperienced builders follow their designs and find out they don't work. The original builder can't help them, of course: it worked ok for them. So the other builders look for help elsewhere, like here, and find out they are following a bad design.

Thanks PaulRB.

So do you have any advice on where I can start to learn to do this myself?

ChrissyjMatthews:
Thanks PaulRB.

So do you have any advice on where I can start to learn to do this myself?

See reply #1

This is a pretty good tutorial. Pay particular attention to the "Basic Connections" page.