I am building my second halloween LED staff. It has 300 WS2812s wrapped around it. I posted a video earlier of my first staff - this one is just like it.
Anyway, it’s been working fine for the last few days, but suddenly it has started flashing random pixels and freezing up. What could be causing this?
I’ve had intermittend issues with clone Arduino Pro Micro’s as well as low battery voltage. Always have working spare components so you can compare against. I also modularize, so I can swap something out if things start looking goofy.
You have a dead/faulty pixel or badly soldered picel somewhere. Check your power as well!
@Andrew_Tuline Thanks Andrew. I hadn’t thought about a bad nano (I use a lot of clones, too, but rarely have had a bad one). I like the modular idea. Most of the various things I have running off of my controllers usually have jst or other plugs so I can easily disconnect them from the wiring harness, but the controllers themselves are usually soldered right into the harness. I think I will start using a quick disconnect on the controllers too! I don’t think it’s the nano this time, though (I hope not anyway). See my reply to Leon.
I use a lot of clone Nano’s myself, and don’t recall any going bad on me. Leon’s suggestion isn’t bad.
@Leon_Yuhanov Thanks Leon! I was getting ready to tear everything apart to replace the nano when I saw your reply. Since I have a couple of spare LED strips, I just unplugged the strip on the staff and plugged in another strip. No problems, no flickering or freezing. I left it on for a while and also tried wiggling wires and connectors, but it was rock solid. So I guess I’m going to be re-winding my staff! Thanks for the tip!
I’m starting to move to WS2813’s to make them more fault-tolerant. Pricing is pretty comparable.
Cool staff!