SO lately i am doing so much RnD for my LED strips , been through so many articles , videos and forum
LED CHIP : WS2812B
I have 4 LED Strips of 5 meters each
Total LEDs = 1200LEDs
60LEDs/meter
Controller : ESP32-CAM
PIN Used : 16
Library : FastLED
On using ESP32-CAM i am getting only 5 meter LED strip working only when brightness is 255 but when i put 2 parameters in setup()
brightness as 185 and volts and current in millamp (5, 500) workes with 3 LED strips i.e. 900 with low brightness powered from ESP32-CAM with no power injection or other power source in between but 4th LED strip turns light RED i know voltage drop can be the issue .
Now, i want to use at full brightness but when i power inject from after 600 LEDs 3rd LED strips just glows very badly all of the 300 LEDs in 3rd strip
ATX power supply 5V 20 Amps : upto 2 meter glowing rest are not
Power source 5v 500milliamps : all LEDS glow weirdly at full brighhtness
Power source 5v 500milliamps : all LEDs glow weirdly at full brightness
I tried simullating on various softwares but none of them worked as it's a simulator
I saw a video where he is also using 4 led strips with 5m length and using 5v 60 Amps , shall i go with 80 Amps PS or 60 Amps will work , as i saw in video it's working fine Amp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiaS8zfuBHo (1:53) .
Thanks @jim-p for helping i am ordering Power supplies no option left for me to test it out . Surely will put here the results , Let's see . also it should work if i am injecting after 601th LED with PS 5v 20Amps from 601th LED atleast LEDs should work properly without showing weired behaviour of fluctions across a strip .
i tried with 2 LED strips from the back of the strips but same full bright flickering lights glowing with only the single 5 meter second strip and first strip glowing perfectly
Adafruit recommends power every meter (i.e. at both ends of a 2 meter strip).
With that much current, you'll probably need multiple wire-runs back to the power supplies, although every "injection" probably doesn't need separate wiring.
i am expecting for this schematic which i tested with ATX is to have either dim light througout the strip of 5meter if 300 * 60mA is the calculation as 18A required or turn the strip perfectly .
also i have 3 ATX power supply and 1 is new , but all the 3 of them showing same behaviour
If the drawing on the left is true (up to 2m only, rest are not glowing) and the drawing on the right is the same, you have a broken wire...
Check your power wire... all power pads should have continuity... jumper past any break in continuity.
Check your ground wire... all ground pads should have continuity... jumper past any break in continuity.
Data... Where the lights stop solder a jumper wire on the DOUT pad, skip one (or two, or three, ... ) LED, solder the jumper on the next DIN pad.
Repeat #3 until you find the last broken LED.
Strip is working fine with the esp32-CAM direct connection with IO16 , GND and 5v and all LEDs are glowing at full brightness, i tried with other three LED Strips same behaviour with all the 5m LED strips
tried with water proof strip woring with direct connection working but .... not working with ATX power supply 5v 20A
tried with non water proof naked strip soldering injection after some non glowing LEDs ... same behaviour glowing at full brightness but upto 2 meters and not taking Data values
How about you first start out with adding a TTL chip like the 74HCT04 (thru a gate 2x) to lift the 3.3v logic level up to 5v.
Then provide power to the start of the strip and the ESP32 and make sure they share GND, and inject power every meter or 2. Set all leds to 'WHITE' and see where they start to look a little brown.
That is a lot, it will take 50ms to send a complete frame. Consider using a method which can send parallel signals and have multiple outputs.
Ok so i bought anew PS with 5v 60A rating and tried with a single strip and 2 strips each of 5 meter
i am seeing all light glowing with different colors and flickering very bright even though i programmed my ESP32-CAM with pattern , i see current from ESP32-CAM is 0.32 around when pattern working , but when i connect from 5v 60A first few light glows with current 0.20(approx) gradually lights strats glowing weirdly proportional and current reaches to arround 0.99 / 1 A . before screwing my waterproof strip i want more clarification if someone have worked or faced simila issue
No i am not ! Not a level shifter per se, just a simple NOT-gate powered with 5v. a 74HCT04, and run the signal through 2 of the gates, inverting it twice to have the original logic again. The input will respond just fine to the 3.3v logic levels of the ESP32, and the 5v output logic level is sufficient to trigger the WS2812B's
I think that it worked initially is that because of the lack of power, the WS2812B were powered with significantly less than 5v.
Thanks @Deva_Rishi it worked so my Leds are of 60 Watts and i have 5v 60 Amps PS so it is enough to power all my 4 LED strips WS2812B even one more can be powered + power Injections , though I am using I2C Level Shifter as getting much better results with high brightness .
