Hi guys,
I recently bought my first Arduino to control a strip of WS2811 LEDs, but I currently can’t even get them to light up. I have a hunch that it’s the power supply, which is rated at 5v 8A and should be enough to power the LEDs. My first question is, if the LEDs are given power and no data, do they light up at all? And secondly, does anyone know if the WS2811 library has been affected by the release of 1.6?
Power and no signal will not make them light up. A data signal is required. And that power supply should be plenty.
What does your code look like? What about your wiring?
Im using the blinking example included with the library and nothing happens with the LEDs. I currently have the positive and negative from the power supply wired to the positive and negative on the LED strip with a common ground going to the Arduino. The data line is wired to the digital pin. Also, I found that if I connect the power and ground for the LEDs to the arduino, I’ll get a quick blue flash.
If it helps, these are the LEDs im using. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MECZ06G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
They definitely do not light up without data.
Since the blink example only uses the first LED, if I connected the string of 50 directly to the Arduino would it be able to drive only the first LED?
You can connect as many LEDs as you want, but if the code is told your LED strip has a length of one, then you will only be able to change the first LED in that chain.
Are you sure you used the right type in the FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, DATA_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS); call? And are you sure you have the data wire hooked up to the same pin you told FastLED to use?
If so, then everything should work. If it doesn’t, I’d bust out a multimeter and start trying to figure out what isn’t getting the signals or power that it should.
Thanks for the suggestions guys, but it took me 3 hours to realize the data line is one way and I was using the wrong end…
Haha, yep! This is the sound of learning happening 