trisweb
Ben@VersionBen6999 Nice! Would love to see it when it's built out.
@trisweb have to solder the controller, I believe. Will be my first time in ages! But I think I can make at least one, and go from there. Will let you know!!
@trisweb follow up. I finally pulled all the pieces I had out, and grabbed the soldering iron ... and then looked at the resource ( https://github.com/srg74/Controller-for-WLED-firmware ) ... and realized that his "material used" must be missing several components because what I've got looks NOTHING like what he's got there. So annoyed/frustrated.
Looks like I'm going to be looking for another controller, one I can power by USB.
At least I've got the kno.wled.ge website bookmarked.
GitHub - srg74/Controller-for-WLED-firmware: Wi-Fi controller based on ESP-07S module with external antenna for WLED firmware.
Wi-Fi controller based on ESP-07S module with external antenna for WLED firmware. - GitHub - srg74/Controller-for-WLED-firmware: Wi-Fi controller based on ESP-07S module with external antenna for W...
@VersionBen6999 ah! Best laid plans…
Can I help at all? WLED is pretty flexible, you might have what you need. Feel free to shoot me a pic of what you’ve got and let’s see.
@trisweb from what I can tell, I've got NOTHING needed to actually go on the board, which is just...an astronomically bad exclusion from their materials list. I'm thinking about going with https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/wled-high-power-led-strip-controller but I'd still need to figure out how to swap the power to USB. I've seen some controllers (not WLED) that appear to be 5V to USB but...
Then there's a matter of how many of those devices I'd need to power about 300 lights. (6x strands of 50).
Sigh.
@trisweb I can't tell if something like this would work as an adapter ... https://smile.amazon.com/CRJ-Voltage-Step-Up-Sleeved-Adapter/dp/B07QFG6LFR ... grr. I wish I had external power available where I'm looking to put the lights!
@VersionBen6999 for that many strings, I’d do a 12V power supply, outdoor rated to around 100W. You won’t be able to power that many through USB. That controller should work fine with that kind of power supply, and it should pass through the power and power itself fine.
What’s your thinking behind making it USB?
For reference, the way mine works is pretty simple—they’re 12v WS2811 strings, and I have a 150W waterproof power brick, ESP8266 board with WLED installed in between in a box.
@trisweb I have no outdoor plug where I'd like to put them. And I'm not keen on the energy loss of trying to run a plug through a window to supply power from inside, unless I could find a micro-cord (like I did for an ethernet cable) that would have a minimal effect on the window. Does such a thing even exist?
@VersionBen6999 totally can! For a short run to bridge the window you could use something like this: https://a.co/d/4pieAnO - you might want to do two in parallel to handle the current of 6 strings.
That’s nice too, because then you can use a non-waterproof power supply indoors.
But yeah I’m not sure how you’ll get power to them if not from a power supply. Solar with a battery?
@trisweb That had sorta been my intent - I had picked up 2 solar powered battery packs (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PBQJ4WB). Though perhaps I'd need to snag a 3rd, and figure out a way to daisychain them to all supply power together?
Got to love condo living! Nothing is easy!
@VersionBen6999 hey that’s actually pretty cool. I bet you could figure it out.
I’d try three strips of 5V addressable LEDs per pack, and my main concern would be the solar not recharging them fast enough. I’m super curious how long they’d run (especially if just for 4ish hours after dark?) and if it does keep up.
Don’t let me discourage you, keep at it! You’ve got the right idea.
As for getting 5V from the USB, easy. Just take the red and black wire from any cut USB cable.
@trisweb And needless to say I've got plenty of USB cables lying around! And some good waterproof electrical tape on my Amazon shopping list. Grabbing two of those controllers, one for each power supply. And at worst case scenario, if the adapters are losing too much charge, I can bring them in and charge them via USB-C ... or look for other ones that might be better suited.
I will update you when those controllers arrive and I start hooking things up (for real this time!).
@trisweb Update! My Amazon order day (I try to limit my ordering to the 15/30th of the month) finally arrived, so I ordered 15ft USB cables, electrical tape, and two waterproof "cord" containers for the controllers. They'll arrive tomorrow. Controller should as well (via USPS). So assembly should begin tomorrow as well. I'll document with pictures.
@trisweb Doh! I forgot about the holiday today. So no USPS delivery (read: no controllers). But Amazon will deliver!
@trisweb Looks like USB power isn't going to work. Did the wiring, looking over charts to make sure I was doing it properly (the power side has VCC & GND ports), so red + white. Isolated those from the USB cord, and threaded those into the controller. Electrical taped the hell out of the unused portion. Plugged the other end of the cable into my battery bank and turned it on...nothing. It should have been broadcasting an SSID for my phone to see. Nope.
Back to the drawing board!
@trisweb So I'm an idiot. I checked with my electrician (he was over here today doing another job for me) and he was all "no, not white, black" ... I undid the tape, stripped the black, fed it in, and powered it up - success! So next set is to feed the lights cabling in, and see if I have sufficient power to light those bad boys up.
@trisweb Good news - lights power up! Bad news - they won't change color.
Siiiiiiiiigh.
@VersionBen6999 my bad if I led you astray on the wire colors! Glad you figured it out. If they power up that’s a great start, I’m sure you can keep playing with the controller to get the data line working.
@trisweb Nah, I led myself astray googling! LOL. And I'm going to try and get a proper power supply and wire that up, and see if that makes a difference color wise. Because everything SEEMS to be set up right in the WLED app.
I did just set up "holidays" in a google calendar, to use that as a trigger in HA with preset colors/scenes for each of those holidays.
Mostly your typical Christian holidays, but some Muslim + Hindu holidays as well (multi-cultural neighborhood!).
@trisweb the power supplies I picked up can put out up to 15000 mA, which should be MORE than sufficient, I'd think, especially if I'm running 3 strands to each power supply. And the output of those power supplies is 5V, which is what the lights call for. So I *should* be good? We'll see come Friday!
@trisweb had another thought - what if I borked the controller but using the wrong wires? Since I have another set, going to try those shortly and see if I get better results!
@VersionBen6999 yep that should work as power supply goes! You likely won’t have broken anything with the wrong wires, it needs a full circuit to make electricity flow, and anyway 5V isn’t going to blow up anything. Worth trying though!
@trisweb Looks like I DID fry the controller.
This is with the second controller, wired properly from the start. I don't have the fully array of colors, but they DO change.
So I'm thinking with the more powerful power supplies, that'll give me alllll of the colors!
@VersionBen6999 try the settings for RGB order in WLED! You can set various orders, try to find the one that matches your string. Could be BGR.
@trisweb I don't even know at this point. this controller seems to have issues as well - it kept rapidly flipping on and off. now the lights aren't powering, though the controller is getting power, which in theory means the lights should be too.
@trisweb I've sent an email to Athom. Given some of the reviews on Amazon (and that it's Chinese New Year) I may not hear from them for awhile. For the sake of argument, I picked up 2 identical Athom controllers from Amazon - at least if those don't work, I can send them back to Amazon!