Current status (ha!)
Changing the cables around tells me it’s the port (Teensy pin via 74HCT245) that is flaky, there’s nothing wrong with the sticks. Which makes me wonder how it could be bad input power to the Teensy causing this. If one works fine, they all should, surely?
(Also: uh… this looks awesome.)
Well, it will.
Unfortunately I’m staring down the barrel of disassembling all of them to fit the 1000uF electrolytic caps I decided to skip the first time around because I wasn’t sure they were necessary. Now when I’ve got 14 of them plugged in, you get the problem you see here in about a third of them. Unplugging all the “working” ones makes the remaining (previously flashy) ones work fine.
That’s looking great! Thanks for sharing and helping us learn from your project.
Note to self… don’t skip using the 1000uF cap.
Well, the problem is that I don’t know if that is the problem and I’m disinclined to disassemble them all and fit the caps if that’s not definitively going to solve the issue. To add to that, I bought 6.3V caps and @Ashley_M_Kirchner_No suggests that’s not a high enough voltage rating.
What’s really got me confused is why this worked 100% perfectly the other day with no flickering on the previous circuit board which was wired for series output.
Again, video no play … G+ = crapola …
(My successful-the-last-several-times recipe: upload to YouTube, then embed that video in G+ … meh.)
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing too … just can’t trust G+ to do the right thing. It’s a shame considering both are Google products and one would think they would play nice with each other …
(Yeah, CNBF with the video—software is terrible. :-P)
Here’s another data point. Using the new control board, but setting FastLED up to do sequential output, everything works perfectly. Solid as a rock. But updates are very slow, of course.
Could it still be a hardware issue though?
Hi @Robert_Atkins , If it works rock solid when writing to each stick sequentially… then tis likely some form of crosstalk between signal wires !?
Actually… looking more carefully at the video, it seems you are updating the sticks only every couple of seconds (unless you continuously re-write the same data to them)
and some of the sticks still flicker. That would imply a Power issue (either PSU or power distribution) not data crosstalk !
I’m continuously writing the same data. Check my latest post…
Why are you constantly writing the same data? why not only update when needed? It’s not like the LEDs will turn off if you stop updating.
Because this is a test pattern and it’s not important? It should still work.
I can’t help with yor problem, but just had to say that you make some cool shit!
Hope you get it sorted.
Heh, thanks Mike. I gotta tell you though, continuously surfing the edge of your own competence is damned tiring…
I’ve made a career of tipping over the edge of my competence, and landing in a heap while the wave breaks over my head 
I stops hurting after a while.