Greetings fellow lemmings! I have a problem and i was hoping your smart brains could help me solve it. I want to use an arduino and some addressable LED strips as an „ambilight“ upgrade for my pc. I soldered everything according to some instructions on the webz. I also provide enough electricity for the strips via a 12v charger. When I power them on (no matter if the arduino is turned on or not), they just blink randomly. Only a few led on the 4 strips I connected (to make corners for my monitor). The data input from pin 5 on my arduino is completely ignored when it is turned on. So I think it’s a wiring problem. But I don’t see the issue. On the picture you see the input connections i soldered. The strips are just connected together by wires. Ground to ground, data to data, power to power. Is my dumb smooth brain keeping me from my plans, or is there something broken? I only have replacement led strips, but I don’t know why the arduino or the power supply should be broken

update for everyone who cares: A friend of mine and me were troubleshooting (he has a multimeter and another arduino), and we came to the conclusion that I need an even stronger power supply. The leds on the new strips are much more powerhungry than the old ones. So I’ll try to get a more reasonable power supply (we did the math and I need one with 5V and 20 Amps, the current one is 12V with 1.4 Amps) and I will post another update.

Thank you so much for your help, everyone!

next update: With a lab power supply we measured, that the strips need much less power than it says in the description of the LED strip. It works flawlessly with a 5v and 4a power supply. My connections were right, but not the power delivery.

Thank you again everybody! I learned quite a lot 😊

  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 months ago

    Is your light strip the exact one used in the guide you followed?

    Because when I’ve done leds with esp32, leds of the same model can require different code libraries or #includes based on who manufactured the particular led.

    For example I had an 8*16 led array that was blinking randomly when I first started until I realized it was scrolling text sideways and mirrored because there were 3 different types of the same led array.