UNABLE TO CONTROL WB2812B LED - NO RESPONSE

Using Arduino Microcontrollers
#1

I purchased a NodeMCU to control WB2812B light strips, following this guide, I made all the circuits:

I've never been able to get the lights to react, so I started to do some searching and testing.

So far I've reduced the strip to 10 LED's (originally about 460 and configured as such in the .ino for FASTLED), I've also noticed that in the original link the 5V LED strip was connected to 12V incorrectly (which I followed), that gave some side effects I wasn't able to explain (some leds were half powered on).

I've since corrected this by connecting the LED strip to the 5V power supply instead after seeing this project (which is a spin off of the Bruh one above but edited slightly for a few more features and integration into OpenHAB which I use): GitHub - bkpsu/ESP-MQTT-JSON-Digital-LEDs: ESP MQTT Digital LEDs for openHAB, MQTT JSON Light Comp

In his videos I noticed he actually powered the nodeMCU and LED strip off of a single 5V adapter which made me go ah-ha!

That said, no matter what I do I cannot get any response from the strip at all. The first LED lights up green when connected to the output pin on the MCU but that's it.

I've wasted a few hours attempting to troubleshoot various things. Even trying a Wemos D1 mini is Tasmota installed to attempt to drive the led strip for a reaction that doesn't rely on me using MQTT commands (GitHub - arendst/Tasmota: Alternative firmware for ESP8266 with easy configuration using webUI, OT), still nada. I've spent a few hours google searching about FASTLED options, and ESP8266 output mapping, etc. But I don't believe the program is at fault (but have attached a link to it as I have it right now for review): ESP_MQTT_Digital_LEDs_w_JSON.ino - Google Drive

I'm at a loss and not really sure where to look next any help would be appreciated.

#2

if you connected 5V LEDs to a 12V supply, you most likey smoked the first one in the string.

#3

if you connected 5V LEDs to a 12V supply, you most likely smoked all of them. The WS2812B's VCC pins are each connected to 5V in parallel on a strip - only the dataline is daiyschained from chip to chip.

#4

I'm at a loss and not really sure where to look next

Start with the forum guide in the sticky post.

Several of the web address you pasted are not complete (they contain "..."). I will not call them links, as they cannot be clicked on.

You may need a logic level shifter between the esp and the strip (assuming you did not already kill the strip).

#5

Thanks all... Was afraid of that (hurting the strip/LED's with 12V input).

I guess I will order a new roll to see if that changes anything for me and go from there.

I did use a logic shifter in my first iteration FWIW.

BTW, I edited my main post and all links should be working now.

Cheers!

#6

2812B requires 5v signal, or close to it. 3.3 is not enough.

#7

NOTORIOUSVR:
BTW, I edited my main post and all links should be working now.

You failed. There are no links in your post. Only pasted web addresses. They cannot be clicked on, so they are not links. You chose to ignore my advice in post #3.

#8

DrAzzy:
2812B requires 5v signal, or close to it. 3.3 is not enough.

Alright I will reconnect the logic shifter and try again, but I've seen you don't need it in the 2nd link where he takes the output directly from the MCU.

PaulRB:
You failed. There are no links in your post. Only pasted web addresses. They cannot be clicked on, so they are not links. You chose to ignore my advice in post #3.

No sure why the forum wouldn't parse the links on it's own during an edit.. but i've manually fixed it now.

Not sure what advise you're speaking of in your post. The LLS which I already said I have done/tried the first time. But like I said above I will try it again before I go and order a new roll of lights.

#9

NOTORIOUSVR:
Not sure what advise you’re speaking of in your post.

The advice to read the forum guide. That would have told you how to post links. You figured that out yourself, I guess, but there is other useful advice in the guide.

#10

Well I know it’s been a while, but I wanted to update.

I tried reconnecting with the LLS in place again… nada.

So I pulled the trigger on 2 new rolls of LED’s (this time WB2813), a 20A 5V PSU and a cheap controller in order to eliminate my ESP controller that I can only control through MQTT.

First I connected my existing WB2812B strips to the new PSU and controller… nada… not a single light or anything.

So I moved on to the new WB2813 and it works like a charm. So it is clear that I pooched the 2812’s by connecting to 12V supply instead of 5V.

Will be testing my MQTT controller next I hope with some success!

#11

Well tested w/ NodeMCU and have some success! I can light up the strip, control the colors and even change effects.

All w/o requiring the LLS (just on pin D7 direct to the strip).

That said I am having some issues. When running effects I'm getting strange glitching/strobing of the slights, I've attached a video.

The glitching also happens when I too quickly click between colors in solid mode.

Some quick reading about FAST LED leads me to believe the NodeMCU is just too slow/timing/interrupt issues. See thread here: Interrupt problems · FastLED/FastLED Wiki · GitHub

I'm currently testing w/ a full 300 LED strip (5m), but need about 7.5m for my project.

Any ideas? Do I need a faster/more powerful board to do what I need?

Video: LED_glitch.mp4 - Google Drive

#12

I've been getting a similar effect using FastLED with esp8266 and a ws2811 string (50 LEDs). I have not found time to investigate the problem further so far. But I have noticed that I don't get the effect when using NeoPixel library example sketches. It may just be a coincidence. But I will follow your issue with interest.

#13

Well that is interesting and also odd that you're seeing this issue with only 50 LED's... Where as in my OP the links with these projects don't seem to have any visible issues of glitching going on.

I'm trying to contact the person who did the youtube/openhab (2nd link in OP) tutorials now to see if there is maybe something I'm missing.

The only difference I can note so far from his video and our experiences is you're on WS2811 and I'm on WS2813, where as the youtube video seems to use WS2812 strips.

#14

Well I figured it out... after some more searching and link clicking the other thing that I noticed was different between my setup and the tutorial was the DATA pin (output) I was using D7.

Although I found conflicting info when researching the output pin mapping of the NodeMCU v1.0, I found that D5 is somehow tied to CLK where D7 was not, and maybe that's what was needed to fix this issue.

Sure enough remapping to D5 solved my issues and now the glitching is gone! Only thing left is some slight PWMing going on when I put it to a solid white color... Not sure if there is anything that can be done about that, but seeing as I'm 95% there now I will roll with this and try to concentrate on the last 5% of making it perfect even if that means buying a different board or moving to a different library in the future.

#15