This is Arka from India. I've planned to decorate my own bedroom with some Addressable LED Strips, which will be driven by an Arduino board. I prefer WS2812B SMD LED Strips for my project.
As per my design, I require around 15 meters of such LED Strips for the decoration.
I have two queries regarding my project, which are mentioned below.
I want to know the maximum length of WS2812B LED Strips of all types (viz. 30 LEDs/M, 60 LEDs/M, 144 LEDs/M, etc.), that can be operated by one single output pin of Arduino Mega 2560 R3, which will be connected to the Data-in port of the LED strips. Please note that, in this case, I want to provide VCC and GND connection from an external adapter.
Can I use the 5V and GND pin of Arduino Mega 2560 R3 to power up the entire length of LED strip, instead of using an external adapter?
If I use a total of 15 pins of the Arduino board and divide the entire LED strip into 15 number of 1 meter segments, then it should work faster, right?
One more query regarding this. Can you please provide me the rating for the external adapter that should be used to power up the entire length of LED strip?
Breaking the string up will let you update a part of the string faster, but updating the whole thing will not be any faster, since you'll still have to send just as much data. This would be helpful if certain parts of the string have to be updated more often, though.
I doubt this will be a problem though, have you looked at the numbers? Data rate is 800 kbps = 100 kbyte/s = 33k LED updates per second, or 0.033 ms per LED. You could get 60 FPS (typical computer monitor refresh) on a 500-LED string, which is a lot of LEDs.
Turning the WS2812B's on full pulls ~50mA per LED (counting all 3 channels), so 1A per 20 LEDs. Power supply gets big fast.