Hello, I am new to leds and hardware world, I do apologise in advance if I am asking for something very obvious.
I ran into problem when changing the color of Leds from Red to Orange. I am trying to blink a strip of WS281b Leds with 144 leds. Not all Leds are blinking and some go off randomly.
When I run with red color it works fine but as soon as I change it to orange ir starts to stutter.
Please help…
Best.
looks like your power supply is not strong enough. 144 leds can draw a max of 144 x 3 x 0.02 A = 8.64A
You should have at least a 5V 5A power supply.
Another common mistake is grounding. Make sure you connect your Gnd to your µController AND to the LEDs
I second what Juergen says. Sounds like a lack of current.
You may have done this stuff already, but if not, here’s some suggestions to reduce current draw, so maybe you can test with your current power supply, until you get something more suitable.
Set the brightness lower. Full brightness (value of 255) will draw around 5.76A for orange. Change the value to 127 (50% brightness), you’ll only draw 2.88A, and it will still appear close to full brightness. Setting the brightness value to 51 will give the appearance of about half as bright as full brightness, but orange will only draw about 1.15A.
You could also just test the primary colors (red green and blue) on your strip to ensure all 3 led colors are working properly. If you have enough current for red, it’s likely you have enough for green and blue as well. You won’t get to test your desired effect, but you’ll know if everything works.
Also notable, is where the power is coming from. If you’re powering the strip from your board, there’s usually a limit to how much current you’re getting. Some boards will only give about 1A from usb, and 2A from a wall power supply (or less if your wall supply provides less). You might just need to give the strip direct power if you are using a wall supply higher than 2A.
Hope this helps!
Thank you for the replies, much appreciated.
I have reduced the brightness to 160 and also ran the test for primary colours and they work fine.
I am using 3.7v lipo battery to power the strip. I was thinking of using second lipo battery at the half way mark to boost the voltage.
Will it work? Or I need to change the power source to nimh batteries.
Cheers
Well, that’s good. We can say your circuit is fine, so that’s a plus.
Using a LiPo, I prefer to not run a large number of leds off them. Depending on the pattern I’m using, I don’t generally like to go much over 60 pixels. I try to keep it under 1A draw. Those batteries are volitile, so I like to be gentle on them. I’ve never made a project with multiple power supplies, so I can’t give any advice from experience, what I’ve read always says it’s a better practice to get it from one power supply if possible.
The resistance of the strip probably isn’t the issue anyways. I’ve never had 1 meter cause any issues with resistance.
Personally, I would drop the brightness down to 50, just to ensure the program is working. Then figure out power options.
Alkaline could be a good option as well. Not rechargeable, but they seem to work better at higher current rates. It can be safer too. If 4 alkalines get put in your nimh holder by accident, you’ll blow the leds from too much voltage.
Since you seem to want to power this from a battery, I would highly recommend doing everything you can to lower your current draw. To provide more amps from portable sources starts getting pricey.
There are options, however, such as portable power banks (think portable phone chargers), depending on your size and cost limitations. You’ll likely have to modify a usb cable to get your power, but some can supply up to 6A at 5V from multiple usb ports (up to 2.4A per port). But it’s another option.
Can I ask some questions?
What controller are you using?
What capacity LiPo do you have?
Are you powering the leds from the board?
If you are powering from the board, what power pin are you using?
Here’s a good guide to power reduction. Not based off fastLED, but the ideas are solid
Thank you for the detailed response…
For Alakaline battery holder I am adding a step down diode to lower the voltage before it hits the pcb so the voltage from 4 alkaline batteries will be down to 5v
Thx for the link and I run through the sketch again to see if I am doing anything silly
Best
You’re quite welcome! Glad to help when I know something about something 
I do notice your lipo is pretty small. There is a chance stepping up to a 2500 mAh could help. I guarantee nothing on that. But if you have one laying around, it’s worth trying.
Seems like you have a good idea what you’re doing and where to go from here. I know I’m happy to answer anything else I know about. I hope it all works out. And show off what you made when it’s all done!
hi, I managed to figure out the cause of stuttering.
Its the BLE transmission causing the Leds to remain off and breaking the pattern.
Is there anything in the library I can use to stop this from happening?
Best
Sorry, I’ve never used bluetooth on anything, no clue about that :-/