I just found this library and love it! I was hoping it would solve the problem I am having, but it didn’t. I’ve tried 3 different libraries and all 3 have had the same problem. I’m using an LED strip I got from China on eBay along with an Uno R3. The eBay description says the lights use a WS2811 along with 5050 LEDs. They work great in every way, except that each LED is not addressable, but instead act in groups of 3.
For example if I use the FASTSPI_LED example FirstLight with NUM_LEDS set to 10 it will turn on sets of 3 lights until the 30th light. So instead of LED 1 being on, I get 1, 2, and 3. Instead of LED 2 being on, I get 4, 5, and 6.
Anyone have any hints on what I can look at, or did I get poorly manufactured lights?
Some led strips are manufactured this way. (If you ask me I don’t know what the use of these are… but perhaps others have found one). If you send a link to what you bought, can tell you for sure.
Sorry to tell you that it was indeed intentional. The key passage is:
‘1 WS2811 IC control 3 LED Chip’. Each WS2811 is able to control one RGB ‘pixel’ which in this case is 3 RGB led packages.
Alex, that is the way a lot of the 12V WS2811 strips are made. For simple animations and ambient lighting they work great, but you can only control it is groups of 3 LEDs
Alex, FYI…
The WS2811 can control 3 LEDs, but an RGB LED is effectively 3 LEDs in one pixel/package. So it actually is running 9 individual LEDs per chip, just not 9 RGB LEDs per chip.
The WS2811 is also normally run from a 5V supply. When running from a higher voltage, they will put several LEDs in series to make up for the extra voltage. This can be put to good effect to create large pixels - like http://www.adafruit.com/products/683 - but it isn’t so good if you want fine grained pixel control on your RGB strip
