Flickering speeds hey guys, I have fitted an outdoor (sheltered) area with LED lighting.

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Flickering speeds

hey guys, I have fitted an outdoor (sheltered) area with LED lighting. I ran my code, which i posted in here the other day(https://gist.github.com/Tejkaran/fc14642e71f7f7838066608b7681b9d1) and it was flickering on some, but not all the lights. However when I reduce the speed to 8mHz,from 12mHz, they all work fine. The layout of my lighting looks very much like this (https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/36744-connecting-strips-of-APA1012-together-but-not-neededing-sync-OctoWs2811) where I have one Teensy feeding multiple strands. I have used the prop shield to convert signal strength to 5v.
The layout is Teensy -->prop shield(on top)–>10cm wire to a terminal block to split the signal 5 ways( I used two terminal block connected together) (http://www.screwfix.com/p/5-way-lever-connector-222-series-pack-of-40/38224?kpid=38224&cm_mmc=Google--Product%20Listing%20Ads--Sales%20Tracking-_-sales%20tracking%20url&gclid=Cj0KEQjw4fy_BRCX7b6rq_WZgI0BEiQAl78ndx6BLfderomqSJHMo4W8HejcwQJThgbhwleucpuzF2QaAuQw8P8HAQ) and then 2.2m to the led lights.

Why would this happen? In total it is about 3.5m from Teensy to the end. I read the voltage and it was 4.67 at the beginning of the LED strip and 4.51 at the end. I find it really odd and would just like to understand more than anything else why the timing can not work at 12mHz. It does not affect what I am going to do because it is not timing critical but it is nice to know what is going on.

thanks

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There’s something about the way that APA102 strips are made that it seems like the longer the strip is, the lower the max data rate that you can use with it becomes. No one has been able to find a good way around this, unfortunately - and it’s not just voltage/power. (It’s not the APA102 chips themselves - I have a board with 768 APA102 chips that I can run at 24-32Mhz easily)

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Which prop shield / level converter are you using?

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@Jeremy_Spencer
3.3v to 5v
It’s on the pjrc site, prop shield low cost
http://www.pjrc.com/store/prop_shield_lowcost.html

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@Daniel_Garcia is there a better led strip to use for faster rates at farther distances?
So if i used the ws2811, how does that do for long distances?

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@Tejkaran_Samra ​​​, try putting 100ohm resistors in the clock and data lines after the prop shield. Try them at the beginning of the data and clock lines and also try adding another pair at the end of the clock lines.

There are numerous posts on this subject, try searching the forum…

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I’m thinking of trying the level shifter by the LEDs rather than at the controller end to see if that helps.

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@Jeremy_Spencer I will add the resistors and see if that helps.
Good idea with putting the prop shield/level shifter next to the led’s however the prop shield needs to be connected to the Teensy to make it work. I do have some of the level shifting Chips (sn74hct595n) so I can try that as well to see how it differs,
Thanks for your help

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https://plus.google.com/115124694226931502095/posts/SLKvetEt5SP

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thanks. I hope you can appreciate i did look but this is not the most user friendly place to look either./…