WS2812s will not run unless ground is lightly touching it's connection?

Other Hardware LEDs and Multiplexing
1

I have experienced this problem over the past several days where WS2812 strips will not run unless I take the microcontroller ground pin and lightly touch it to its connection. Extremely lightly.

This has happened with probable 5 different strips, 3 different microcontrollers, different level shifter boards, different sets of jumper wires, different power supplies, different breadboards... on and on. If I push the ground pin fully into it's connection point the strip does not display.

Does anyone know the cause of this and how to fix it??

2

Show us a 'good' image of your wiring.

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3

Yes. I found out I need a multiplexing level shifter set up. I am trying to drive 6 strands of 91 WS2812s, all from the same data signal (all displaying the same signal). It works better if I use a TXB0108 to multiplex the signal, I'm driving them with a Due.