Does anyone know how to kill some pixels in WS2812b Strips?

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1

Does anyone know how to kill some pixels in WS2812b Strips? I have some and have been having some intermittent issues with pixels going bad.

Any ideas on what would cause Pixels to flake out or die?
(video is before pixels went bad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CL4wqNrfoU

2

Do you have any videos of the issue?

3

I’m not sure that anyone has successfully debugged this. While some folks have been able to consistently get one or more to go bad, some have it happening at the beginning of the string, others at the end, some have one go bad, or more … but I don’t know anyone who has discovered the exact cause here.

4

I’ve had to replace a number of dead pixels (8 maybe). Seems like another one goes bad after I fix one.

I think I killed one of them via static, but that is the exception. I’ve only had outright dead pixels once, the rest caused flicker in the data channel.

I don’t have any capacitors in my circuit yet. I just picked up some and am planning on using them this weekend, but I want to cover the bases. I’m also getting a friend to bring his Oscilloscope so I can see what is going on!

Maybe I’ll experiment on my flaky pixels to see what it takes to ‘kill’ them. What if I apply 5v to the data channel without the VCC hooked up? How about without GND hooked up? What voltage spike will the Pixel handle? etc.

5

There’s definitely a suggestion of not connecting data lines prior to connecting GND and VCC, but I couldn’t tell you if that’s repeatable nor if it actually makes a difference.