BRUH LED Strips Flickering/Unstable

I am trying to setup the BRUH Led Strips. I have the same equipment and everything. I driving everything with a 600W power supply. I have the NodeMCU, logic level converter, 12v LED strips WS2811. I am power injecting at the beginning of each strip. (5 strips total) For some reason, when I power everything up, the lights turn on white. If I choose an effect, I have pixels that either don’t light up, or the animation pretty much “freaks out” and flickers. I have spent days trying to figure out what could be the cause, but I am not making any progress. Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or could help. Thanks!

Welcome.

Are all the negative/ground wires attached together?

That,s usually the cause of random flickering.

I have no more than 2 terminated on the same post on my power driver, but that would be the only spot they are attached together. I didn’t think that would matter though.

You are sure they are All common to each other?
If so you ok.
If not.
A good test to see if all ground’s are common to each other is with a ohm meter.
attach one probe to one ground. Then with the other probe touch all of the ground ends, All should have continuity with each ground end.

Can you explain a little more as to what you mean by common to each other? I’m by no means an electrician to be honest. lol.

Thats easy to explain. :wink:

However, basically, think of the the negative/ground as one continuations. unbroken wire. So all end points of the ground wire are as one.

I believe I have everything wired up correctly. This is the power supply I am using. Again, I had to use some of the post for no more than two strips.

https://www.amazon.com/Eyeboot-Universal-Regulated-Switching-Computer/dp/B00YRIRRS4

May be a similar issue has been asked on Bruh’s git page? Look in the issues section (https://github.com/bruhautomation/ESP-MQTT-JSON-Digital-LEDs/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed) for similar issue. (both open and closed) There Maybe a solution there. You could ask there as well.

Thanks. I just checked for previous articles over there and didn’t really find anything. I found one article about flickering, but it was because they had the wrong power supply on it. Wish I could explain it better. It’s like when I choose an animation, it freaks out and blinks the animation really fast. But I can turn everything off and back on, and all the strips turn white, but as soon as I choose any animation, it flickers, or doesn’t display the animation or I’ll have pixels int he middle and on the ends, randomly really, one strip, and wrong color pixels on another. Super weird.

I came upon some tips for you here: https://www.brainy-bits.com/flickering-led-strip/ . It may be of help.

I really appreciate all your help on this, but I don’t think voltage drop is the issue. When I power them up, they automatically come up to white/100% brightness and the color is not degraded. The only time I have an issue is when I change the colors of the strips or when doing an effect. It’s not a flicker, like you would get with voltage drop, it’s a flicker like a strobe, only way I can explain it is it is like freaking out lol.

Same exact issue that Intel has in his video, but adding the line of code for the interrupts did not resolve the issue for me.

Do you have a level shifter on the data line, it bumps the data voltage from 3.3v (from the Arduino) to 5v ? (the LED strip expects 5v data signal. And works better,usually)

Some good tips here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide/best-practices

Yes. I have the logic level shifter.

I have the same hardware setup from BRUHs video, but instead of using BRUHs code, I’m using ESPHOME. works much better and then you can create your own LED effects much easier. also makes debugging easier, IMO.

good luck

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Hmm.

You are working with 5 strips, that’s a very long run. Perhaps one of the led strips are faulty? Try your setup with only one strip. And if it works as expected add the strips back one by one till a fault occurs.

If you are soldering wires together (highly recommended) a cold solder joint could be the culprit. Cold solder joint is where it appears to be a good connection, however it’s not entirely melted together.
maybe go over all the solder joints?

I just got home and did some testing. When using the logic shifter, the strip furthest away works fine. Without using the logic shifter, all strips work perfectly, except the one that is the farthest from the nodemcu.

Are you using a logic shifter? Also, how long is your run?

Also, I want to clarify. I have 3 runs technically I guess. I have a data wire ran to about 9 meters of lights, another data wire running to 3 meters of light, and another data wire running to another 3 meters of lights.

yes, Im using logic shifter, only controlling one 5m strip though. i soldered power & ground wires at both ends of the strip as well.