Totally Stumped. 275 WS2812B, One 300w 70A power supply with injection.

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Totally Stumped. 275 WS2812B, One 300w 70A power supply with injection.
When I fire this up, random lights stay lit and the Arduino code will not send over the data. If I remove the power injection the same results unless I unplug and re-plug back in the 3 wire connector to the LEDs.
I have capacitors at each power.
Some times everything works but 98% does the whole random lights on and stays like that with one maybe 6 LEDs doing the pattern.

What might I be missing? I check data direction, grounding, power.

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Are you using an Arduino or some other board?

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Distance of data wire from MCU to first LED? Level shifter?

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Using a ESP8266… not using a level shifter and the distance to the first pixel is about 2 inches.

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What’s the voltage measured at the MCU and first LED?

Have a smaller set of LEDs you can try with the same set of LEDs?

Tried different values for

#define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0
#define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 1

before you #include <FastLED.h>?

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Awesome tips. I will try that.

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@Darren_Hedlund Level shifter is recommended with an ESP8266. I would suggest a 74HCT245

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I do have a 74HCT245. Any one got diagrams on wiring laying around?

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Jason, your featherwing level shifter worked and after that found I in fact had the wire too long.

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good reference circuit: https://github.com/Clooney82/MavLink_FrSkySPort/wiki/2.6.-Led-Control

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@Dushyant_Ahuja Perfect, thank you so much!

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Has anyone every tried this product? https://www.adafruit.com/product/757

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@Darren_Hedlund yes, quite a few people around here have posted about it and it doesn’t work. It’s not fast enough to handle the data rate required for even WS281X LEDs. 74HCT245 and 74HCT125 are the only level shifters that have been shown to work consistently.

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Thanks. I do not want to use your cool featherwing level shifter for this project since this is using my old 2866 feathers so will have too order more 74HCT245.
You need to make more cool stuff like this (advert for Jason). https://www.tindie.com/products/jasoncoon/octo-level-shifter-featherwing/

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Thanks @Darren_Hedlund ! I need to test it, but I think that same FeatherWing will work for just about any Feather board, including the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266. Most Feather boards mostly follow the same pinouts, with regard to power, digital outputs, etc. I’m sure you’d be able to find at least one, if not four, digital outputs that run through the level shifter on that board with just about any Feather board.

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It does work for the 8266, but I am using yours for the esp32 because 32 is better. So much to learn and I still need to learn about making my own PCB, AHHHHHHH!!!
You should make a simple level shifter board with the resistors. I cannot find anyone who has one.

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@Darren_Hedlund lol, you’ll get there. :slight_smile:

I definitely could, but it couldn’t get much smaller or simpler than the mini board I already made: https://www.tindie.com/products/jasoncoon/wemos-d1-mini-esp8266-level-shifter-mini-shield/

It uses the 74HCT125, which only has four outputs, but that’s all the ESP8266 supports anyway.

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@Jason_Coon Okay shopping time. Let me know if this is correct sir.

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@Darren_Hedlund I think those should probably work. I can’t guarantee, or vouch for those Amazon sellers. I can definitely vouch for the DigiKey parts. They ship pretty quickly, but not free.

Sorry, I just now added a component kit for the mini shield. Includes everything except the Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266.

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Sweet, ordering now from you…