Is there a significant quality difference between WS2812B manufacturers/sellers? I need to buy 25 meters of 144/m strips for a burning man project, and really want to avoid having any of my strips go bad because of a failed LED. (sorry if this has been posted before recently, please feel free to link me to previous discussions, I didn’t have much luck searching the google group)
Ray Wu has them for $13 per meter: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/1M-long-144leds-m-WS2812B-5050-rgb-led-with-WS2811-IC-built-in-led-pixel-strip/701799_2047883370.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.3f3f77bb5akaBm
Worldsemi quoted me for $20 per meter: https://worldsemi.en.alibaba.com/product/1570355499-800259542/ws2812b_flexible_144_pixel_led_strip.html?spm=a2700.8304367.rect38f22d.15.7d1b6bfepq8Uyn
And then Adafruit has them for $60 per meter: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1507
Where can I get quality strips without overpaying? I love Adafruit and have bought tons of their products, but I imagine they are overpriced for bulk items like this. Why is Ray Wu so much cheaper? Do his products have higher failure rates? Does Adafruit source from a particularly high quality supplier? Or do they do additional QA?
And then once I get my order, is there a way to test strips for premature failure? Would running them at peak brightness/full white for a day or two help induce failures in LED’s with bad solder joints due to overheating?
Thanks!
They all sell the same stuff, each adding on their own markups, like ADAFRUIT. I order mine through Ray WU and have never really had any issues. Some notes, the link you posted for Rays Store, those strips do not have solder pads in between each pixel. so if you need to cut them to different lengths, you can not. If you need that feature he has the correct strips, look again through his store. I have been ordering SK6812 instead of WS2812 since they came out, same thing. Don’t bother with Adafruit
@David_Specht SK6812 are clones made by a different company. They have slightly different driving requirements but in reality they are identical to the WS pixels in every way.
I normally get strips from Ray Wu. His prices are reasonable and I rarely have any problems.
I generally prefer SK series chips to WS but I’m reality there is almost nothing to choose between them.
@Leon_Yuhanov Did you stop using Alan at http://szlcoe.com? Any bad experience there?
I bought 20 sets of these with free shipping so evens out, plus got them in 2 days. Tested 12 sets so far and no issues.
I bought a ton of the adafruit ones and found no difference…
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075YTZK44/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1
@Jeremy_Spencer I have been meaning to ask. WS vs SK, why the switch?
@Darren_Hedlund The SK6812s have a higher PWM rate than WS2812Bs, which gives a smoother light.
The SK9822s can handle faster data than APA102Cs and have a progammable current source for brightness, I think that they look slightly better especially at low brightness levels. (I use them in infinity mirrors where there is no diffuser…)
@Jeremy_Spencer Interesting, thank you for answering that question. Need to look into testing those.
@Matt_Richard Yep had an issue with 2 large orders. Wasn’t happy with the quality
I am using some WS2813 strips from Involt which have 2 data lines that allow for the LEDs to continue if one or several burns out. I imagine if more than one in sequence burns out the rest of the strip would die tho.
@Gerard_Pesce I have been wondering how well those work.