20m of LED Strip WS2812B 60 LED/m. Will I have control issues with a RPi?

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Hi folks

I have a project which will require a 20m long strip of LEDs. Looking at hooking up 4 of these rolls. So that’s 1200 LEDs in total.

I’m not too worried about power as I won’t ever have to turn on more than maybe 60 at a time. Will probably use this power supply with every 5m of LED connected in parallel.

The data line will have to be linked up roll to roll however. I am worried about whether I can control that many of them. Will the signal start dropping off at some point?

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Hi Alvaro,

Yes, you will get a voltage drop across your strips depending on the length that they’re connected at and the voltage you’re running at (the lower the voltage the more significant the effect so for longer strips I usually recommend running 12/24V strips rather than 5V, although for 20m with multiple supplies as long as you’re careful about any potential common grounds it should be fine)

The problem likely won’t be that the signal won’t reach that distance for those strips, but rather that you’ll get a noticable delay in control on your strips as you reach longer and longer lengths (this is known as the frame-rate). This will be determined by the frequency of your signal which on a Pi for WS2812B is typically 800kHz.

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