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Lights not working #1119

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superbond05 opened this issue Aug 28, 2020 · 17 comments
Closed

Lights not working #1119

superbond05 opened this issue Aug 28, 2020 · 17 comments
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hardware (Likely) Setup-specific issue, e.g. flickering LEDs

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@superbond05
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Hello
I am new to this site and the world of programmable Led strips or any other Led lights.
I received my sw2811 led strip lights (18 15ft strips) today. Took one roll out and hooked it up to my 12v 60 amp power supply. I ran 12v to a step down voltage box that put out 5v. I flashed my esp32 chip with the latest version of wled. I could see the controller on my wled app. I plugged in my power supply and nothing! No lights and no control with the app. The all of a sudden LIGHTS! They all lite up a bright light blue but still could not control them. I tried a different roll of lights. They flickered muilti colours for a Mili-second. Then they went out. Supper frustrated! Ready to send everything back! Please help me understand the Led world!
My goal it to led all our windows and eavestrough

WLED version

  • Board: [e.g. Wemos D1, ESP32 dev]
  • Version [e.g. 0.10.0, dev200603]
  • Format [e.g. Binary, self-compiled]

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Anything else you'd like to say about the problem?

Thank you for your help!
@superbond05
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One more thing. When the esp32 chip is plugged into my laptop it has the wifi blue light flashing. If it unplug it and hook it up to the down verter 5v. With data on D4 it is powered up but no flashing blue. Which I a soon is the wifi light. Don’t get it!

@raoulteeuwen
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O.k. Not sure how much time you've already invested in trying to grasp the basics. LEDs are not rocket science, but as with building rockets, you do need to invest some time to read stuff and/or watch some video's. My blog at https://raoulteeuwen.blogspot.com/2019/08/starting-with-led-strips.html contains some intro video's (after some inspirational ideas for LEDs you see a text "O.k. So even to start with one strip, you need to have a little background." which is followed by some video's with basic knowledge. Can you check whether those are all contain stuff you already know?

@NeariX67
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#658

Hmmmm

@superbond05
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Well that doesn’t help!😩

@superbond05
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I have double and triple checked everything. Voltage wiring everything thing!
I first made the mistake by buying $400 worth of the wrong leds. They were the 4 wire with the remote. They working fine just wanted the program my lights and found out I purchased the wrong leds. Now I can’t get them to work at all!
I need someone to go step buy step from the beginning of what to purchase and how to start right from scratch in layman terms. So I and anyone else that want to get into this hobby will understand. Trust me I have watch YouTube until the caws came home. Still nothing working as should

@fishbone-git
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What is being suggested by the link to #658 is that this is not the right place for debugging a setup. This is not likely a "bug", rather a user or setup issue. You will get more active help in the other places suggested by post #658. For a starter, I would advise not using a 60A power supply until you have things under control. Far too much can go horribly wrong with that much current and no fusing along the lines.

Try a stock binary for starters and a short string of LEDs. You mentioned having the ESP powered and seeing it on the app, THEN powering up your 12V supply, so also good to make sure you have that wiring done correctly, and with the ground of the ESP tied to the GND of the LED power, but not the 5V of the ESP supply and the 5V of the drop-down regulator.

Bright blue probably means you were close, but the wrong colour order for your setup as the default is orange. The multicolour is usually a sign of mis-wiring. Going dark after a short time: hopefully also a bad connection but can also be something horrible as I suggested could happen at the start of my response.

Again, start simple and make changes once you have the basic, non-custom first attempt working.

@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Aug 29, 2020 via email

@Aircoookie
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What was the problem?

@Aircoookie Aircoookie added hardware (Likely) Setup-specific issue, e.g. flickering LEDs and removed bug labels Aug 29, 2020
@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Aug 29, 2020 via email

@Aircoookie
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Good to know haha!
With 12v voltage drop generally is less of a problem than with 5 volts and thus you can get away with less power injection. Every 150 to 250 LEDs (3-5 strands) should be enough. As for gauge I am not an expert but if you run multiple cables from the power supply 16 awg should be plenty. If you first run a single cable from the power supply and split it up later, maybe a tad more.
Also I would recommend putting in some car fuses in the distribution if possible since your power supply can output a scary amount of current :)

@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Aug 30, 2020 via email

@NeariX67
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Thank you for the information I really appreciate it. Would you mind if I need more guidance I could contact you?
…
Sent from my iPhone On Aug 30, 2020, at 4:56 AM, Aircoookie [email protected] wrote:  Good to know haha! With 12v voltage drop generally is less of a problem than with 5 volts and thus you can get away with less power injection. Every 150 to 250 LEDs (3-5 strands) should be enough. As for gauge I am not an expert but if you run multiple cables from the power supply 16 awg should be plenty. If you first run a single cable from the power supply and split it up later, maybe a tad more. Also I would recommend putting in some car fuses in the distribution if possible since your power supply can output a scary amount of current :) — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#1119 (comment)>, or unsubscribehttps://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQQ7KU5T63537LQVCHMJ5Y3SDIH45ANCNFSM4QOC4NJQ.

there is a discord community waiting for you...

@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Aug 30, 2020 via email

@Aircoookie
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Discord is the best app for chatting and we use it as the main "home" of the WLED community. Here is a link if you'd like to join the server: https://discord.gg/KuqP7NE
If it's not for you, don't worry, you can also just post into this thread :)

@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Aug 30, 2020 via email

@superbond05
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superbond05 commented Sep 3, 2020 via email

@Aircoookie
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Hi!
Try whether it boots/connects if you remove the data connection between pin D4 and the LEDs. Trying to figure out if the power supply or the LEDs are the issue :)

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@raoulteeuwen @Aircoookie @NeariX67 @fishbone-git @superbond05