Hey all, Newbie here.
So I dove in and bought a set of lights from Ray Wu and an arduino uno. Actually managed to run a few sketches on the string of 50 WS2801’s. Only problem with hardware is that one of the LEDS is missing the red it worked the first time i tried them although that bulb showed more red when I called for purple and tonight it was dark when I called for red. Is that a common problem from the Chinese LEDS? Other than that it was fum getting a couple sketches to run. I don’t have much programming experience the last program I wrote was to scroll my name across a commodore 64. LOL!
Jeff, well done for getting so far on your own.
Probably just a duff LED module that has gone ‘pop’. Not particular to Chinese sourced stuff. Most LED strips bought in a local country are likely to be from this area anyway. So you have not made a bad choice. Just is.
You can either live with that LED duff, cut the faulty section out (at the cut here lines) and solder in a new short section, cut into two shorter strips (for testing or different project), or what ever. So all is not lost.
Jeff,
Welcome to the addictive blinky LED world! You and your wallet will never be the same.
I agree with @Adam_Sharp that the problem is not an issue with where you purchased the product. All of my LEDs have been sourced from China and so far the failure rate is less than 1/2%. Electronics are most likely to fail in the first 30 days of service.
Yeah, a very small percentage of these LEDs have failures in the way you’ve described
I have 65 strips. I have had one out of them all that had this type of failure upon purchase. I have had others fail over time though but I cannot attribute that to the led or just wear and tear as the lights are always out in public and fondled by many people…