I bought 5 strips of WS2815 (12v), tested them with basic esp8266 webserver LED controller and with WLED via esp8266 before I glued UHV tape and put them along my house’s roof line. I swore they worked without a hitch, connected to GPIO 2 (D4). Now that they’re up, secured, with 12v input power injections every 5m length, they’re not working. They light up but are unstable, do not respond to inputs from WLED app or LAN ip address. The color is random, unresponsive to commands (does ‘respond’ just with increase/decrease random flickering, even ‘turning off’ the strips results in a 2second delay of random rapid flickering before most of the pixels go dark.
My setup is: WLED running on esp8266 nodeMCU - model is Amazon.com
I’ve grounded to the esp8266 breadboard grounds from the end of each segment (2 segments @ 300 pixels per run), grounded 12v output from 150w 12v power supply to the board,
I have 2 esp8266 powered via VIN from 12v—5v step-down.
The ws2815 wires are as follows: blue (backup data—grounded internally in strip to black ground), green signal wires now to 5v logic output of 35v level shifter (74ahct125). Tried to resolve the issue by using logic shifter but no luck.
For the last 3 weekends I’ve tried a lot of different things,
went through wiring for a short
I’ve reconfigured software with different # of LEDs down to 200 into segments no luck.
You have a nice idea. I see several things that I would check. You state: I have 2 esp8266 powered via VIN from 12v--5v step-down. To me that indicates a transformer which will not work, it needs to be 5V DC. If you have 12VDC use the VIN pin but do not expect to get much power from the board. You did not state anything about a driver for the leds. I think when you tested this you only had one or two leds on the outputs which would work however when the led strips are added it cannot supply that much power hence the driver requirement. Calculate your worse case current and validate your power supply can supply that amount or more.Try this link: Addressable WS2815 LED Strips Work with SP107E, How to Build a LED Music Screen - YouTube it appears similar to what you want to do. Your 74ahct125 interface appears to be a good choice. Look at the parameters it may not give you a full 5V out. Try this link: https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/74AHCT125.pdf. You can use logic level avalanch rated MOSFETs for you output driver. The higher the amperage the FET is rated at the cooler it will run. 50A devices are my goto when I have a few amps. You still may need a heatsink. Look at the junction to case thermals to determine ths.
Good Luck & Have Fun
Gil
I would not use GPIO2 as it's used in the boot process. You have to be careful with this one, as well as GPIO0 and GPIO15.
3.3V may not be high enough for your LEDs, a level shifter is a good idea.
Don't use all those ground returns. ONE ground wire together with the signal wire from your NodeMCU via the level shifter to the strip. That's it. There's no good reason adding more ground wires, the most likely effect is more noise and other problems. Those LEDs produce LOTS of noise with their choppers.