1M RGB LED Strip - WS2812B 144 Per Meter - Black Strip - Weatherproof (CE04858)

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This is a placeholder topic for “1M RGB LED Strip - WS2812B 144 Per Meter - Black Strip - Weatherproof” comments.



This is a 1M strip of addressable (WS2812B) RGB LEDs. Each LED has a built-in controller chip which allows you to daisy-chain the LEDs and control them individually - all from a single GPIO!

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Will a small section of this run off a 18650 battery?

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Hi Joel,
Welcome to the forum :grinning:

A small section might be able to run of a single 18650 battery but there are a few caveats.

  1. You will still need a microcontroller to send the PWM signal to tell the LEDs what colour to output.

  2. You will need a boost converter to increase the batteries 3.7V supply up to the 5V supply the LEDs operate at.

  3. Some very quick and rough back-of-the-nakpin math says your battery will provide enough current for 6 LEDs at full brightness at its standard discharge current. (Very approximate)

The best resource for getting your head around these LEDs is Adafruits NeoPixel Uberguide (Neopixel is the trade name for WS2812).

Can you let us know how many LEDs you need and at what level of brightness? Then we might be able to tell you what power supply it will take to run it, rather than going in reverse.

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I have one of these strips that is showing short circuit between the +5V and Gnd connections. Is this normal or is the strip faulty? When connected to any power source the source immediately shuts down.

Thanks for any helpful advice.

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Hi Derek
Welcome
NO this is NOT normal. Requires careful inspection.
Cheers Bob

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Thanks Bob

OK, that confirms for me. I am helping a friend with his project and haven’t worked with these strips before. Plenty of experience with everything from valves to digital so pretty happy with my skills to get on top of this. Will go to inspection under the magnifier and see if there is anything obvious that could be causing it.

Many thanks
Derek

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Hi Derek.
A technique I have often used to track down this type of thing requires a power supply that is current limited like a bench top supply.

Set it up for a voltage of 5V and a current limit of say 1A. If you have a short the voltage will drop to zero but don’t worry about that as long as it is providing 1A, or more if necessary, all will be OK.

Have a chase around looking for any hot spot, could be a shorted cap, accidental solder bridge or anything really, the offending area will get hot. Then it is a matter of finding the exact cause in this area.

Saves a lot of time and hair pulling believe me.

Similar to finding a short in headlight (or other) wiring in old cars. The harness was usually covered in grease and junk. Trick was to put a nail in the fuse holder and have someone with their head under the bonnet watching for the first signs of smoke. Crude but effective.
Cheers Bob

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Thanks Bob

No obvious visual defect in the light string, nothing else is connected to the string so it has to be within the string itself.

I like the idea of the current limited supply, I will investigate what I can do to build a current limited add on as I only have a voltage limited supply at the moment.

Regards
Derek

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Hi Derek

You will find it very useful. When starting up a project for the first time setting a current limit could prevent disasters if some sort of accidental mistake has happened. All sorts of uses including the fault finding method I described.
Cheers Bob

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Hi Derek
Current limiting.
You have a short circuit. You have a 5V power supply I believe. As a quick fix to limit the current to 1A connect a 5Ω resistor in series with the power supply. This will limit the current to 1A. This will have to be a 5W type, preferably 10W. (5W minimum). If you need more current reduce the value of the resistor. Connecting another 5Ω resistor in parallel with the first one will limit to 2A.
Cheers Bob
PS Warning. These resistors will get hot.

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Good idea, thanks for that.

Regards
Derek
0417 662 274

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Hi there,
Do these addressable strips run on Adafruit’s Neopixel library, or do they require a different library?
I am using an ESP32.

Thankyou!

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Hi Kaylee,

They definitely will! Any WS28xx driver code will run these kind of strip’s.

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