I have not contacted that manufactuerer.
But, just ordered this:
will take about 2 weeks or less to come. I’m going to try this on my shed Gemstones, its a small system with no controller, but 18 pixels only 1 colour, blue.
Basically, im banking on the fact that people are saying that you can control USC2904 lights via WLED with the SK6812 RGBW setting in WLED. I
Oh please post back after you try it as I am really curious if it works. I am guessing it will be wired so that the power and ground is spliced in around the controller to prevent it from burning out?
I might have to try a WLED controller I have around the house to see if it will work with the controller I have. I want to try to see if I can find a female version of the plug the Gemstone lights use here so I don’t need to cut the wire should I want to revert back to the original controller.
This is the internal wiring diagram I found for the Gemstone controller https://fccid.io/2AT6H-GM-02/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-4393576.pdf
Goood news all!
I can now control my Gemstone lights locally and via Home Assistant!
Any WLED controller works. Just set the led settings to SK6812 RGBW and viola!
I just installed the Athom LS8P-WLED:
https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/wled-esp32-music-addressable-led-strip-controller.
This is a dual channel one, but you can get the single channel one (or any other WLED controller).
Gemstone lights are 3 wires, 2 are power and one is data. If you wanted to try this, all you need is that data wire. Remove the data wire from your controller and put in the WLED controller. The controller also needs power so youll have to power the WLED controller. The one I bought can do 5 to 24 VDC. For your house, which may have hundreds of lights, use the existing power supply that Gemstones installed. All you need is the data wire.
This would replace your existing controller, i dont think you can use both.
Also, once you install this, the Gemstone app is no longer required, so thats gone and and so is all the patterns, folders etc. You’ll have to use HA and/wled stock patterns (there are thousands) or make the patterns customized yourself.
Another thing i wanted to mention, this particular model WLED controller has a built in microphone for audio trigger. You can use music to control the lights, too BUT it seems its not supported by WLED yet, so perhaps a future update will allow that.
WLED has some pretty awesome patterns, maybe 100 on the stock firmware plus whatever you make, for example
so i now converted my main house to WLED (i first did my shed as a test with the dual controller). My home has 300 pixels and 2 power supplies. So far so good! Here’s some before and after photos:
I got my Gemstone lights 5 years ago, they didnt have the fancy case as they do now, but its dead easy either way because all you need to unplug the wires from the Gemstone Controller and plug into the WLED controller.
I did have to cut the a wire so that I can screw it on the WLED controller, so if I ever want to go back to the Gemstrone Controller, I would have to ask my dealer for that wire connector.
EDIT:
I have another update for you I can now get my gemstone lights to work with music! Just like the new Hub 2.
WLED is releasing the music or microphone compatibility software pretty soon but you can actually use it now as a release candidate software.
Here’s for example patterns that have a musical note on them will respond to any noise that the microphone picks up.
Flash your WLED controller with this version
This is great. We just had Gemstone installed because I didn’t want to do all the crawling around on the roof, but I like the idea of using their lights with WLED.
Mine looks just a bit different from yours, I don’t have separate power going into the Gemstone hub. I’m honestly not sure how that hub is drawing power, I haven’t disassembled it yet because I don’t want to break it before Christmas and endure the wrath of wife!
I have the same two cables coming off the power supply and heading up to the lights, and I have the same 4 pin connector plugged into the hub, also going up to the lights.
I can get a better picture, but do you think it’s safe to assume that I can do what you did and then just pull additional power from the power supply to power the new controller?
easy peasy!
Get yourself a WLED controller. If you want the sound reactive on get the LS8P. Get some 16 guage AWG wire, red and black would be great but not necessary as long your dont cross them.
unplug your power to the gemstone system, then you could cut the wire here, and just expose the copper in the wire:
label the wires if with tape by using the “output” graphic on the controller, one-by-one, and connect it directly to WLED controller, only 3 wires VCC(+), GND(-) and Data.
Then you will need power to the WLED controller, that’s another 2 wires, VCC(+) and GND(-). The Athom LS8P takes both wires on screw terminals OR barrel (like those DC adapters type).
Power it up and set it up in the WLED app, namely 3 settings:
Enable Power brightness limiter and set to 8000 ma (the Gemstone controller is 9 amps or 9000 ma)
Add the number of pixels you have
then add it to home assistant, and you’re done!
There’s quite a few patterns. I’m starting to really like the WLED app. For example, I can stand outside and play with all the setting, and if I like it, I just save it as a preset with my custom name and it saves everything i set and then it shows up in HA as a preset from a list to use in my automations.
give it a try, you’ll need to do some basic wiring (i,e, remove the old controller and install the new one).
Thanks, that does sound super simple. I’m going to see if I can find the other end of that connector so I don’t have to cut the wires and can easily take it back to “stock” if I ever have to have them come out and replace a puck.
I was planning to explore this in January, thanks for doing the experiment first and sharing your info!
Totally that’s what I went through when at first. But I just took the risk and everything is working well I don’t think I will ever go back to a gemstone controller.
Your picture doesn’t show the whole thing but you can get power directly from the power supply which is behind the controller that silver box. You’ll see at the top there’s a v+ and a v- you can use those to power the W LED controller
You should basically be connecting five wires in total, three to the power/data line and two to the power supply
Here’s the whole thing. I can’t figure out where the gemstone controller is getting power from. But there is an additional V+ and V- terminal on the power supply that I can use for the new controller.
It’s getting it from the data line but it won’t matter because what you need is this below:
I can’t see the photo but it looks like the left three are v+ the middle three v- and the last three are AC high voltage stay away from the AC ones that’s 120 volts there.
Get your 16 gauge wire connect one on v+ and one on v- and connect that to your W LED power terminals controller. And then you know what to do with the top three wires that goes on the other side of the controller.
And you’re done. Obviously make sure your power is off there could be some capacitance in your power supply so do not touch those high voltage AC terminals on the right there.
Also confirm what I’m saying because I can’t see clearly that those are v+ and v-
You could see things a bit more clearly in my picture. Ignore the victron smartshunt I added that just so that I can keep track of wattage and amps etc.
Interesting. The controller has that listed as an output so I wouldn’t have guessed it was getting power from those wires.
The label is on the bottom and it’s difficult to get my phone to focus that closely, but starting from the left, the first empty terminal is another V+ and the empty terminal by the yellow wire is another V-.
But thanks, I’m following what you’re saying. I appreciate your help, I’m looking forward to giving this a shot! Sounds like this really is going to be super easy.
Argh, there’s a reply limit on new accounts. I agree, I have no idea how this thing is working. I even took that controller bracket off to see if there was some hidden power connection behind it. But the lights are on.
This is what I’ve been trying to understand because if they’re feeding power back down the output lines, it seems like another controller might not like that.
I just have the one that I can see anyway. Here’s a picture with the controller removed. The only connection to the controller is the 4 pin (3 wire) connector.
I’m wondering if maybe I just connect the data pin to the new controller and maybe share a common ground.
Come to think of it how are your gemstone lights even working LOL
Maybe you got like a power injection somewhere but even that doesn’t make sense.
Chances are your electricians did it correctly so you can also go by the color of the wire but obviously if you’re not certain usable to meter to confirm the polarity.
I have 2 power supplies also (you can see the second one in the photo, near the main one). The second power supply is injected on the second level, but I have only 1 controller on the house system.
Figured it out. I finely had time to put the meter on it. The V+ and V- pins are tied from input to output. So the power they’re injecting into the lights is flowing back through the output and powering the controller.
I’ve ordered a WLED controller. We’ll see how it goes after Christmas!
Fantastic!
I’ve been having fun with this. Its nice to make custom automations now, like my house greets me with a flashy pattern as i drive up the driveway (based on my location)…lol, and my wife’s is different pattern.
Also, if you get the Athom LS8P-WLED models which has the built-in microphone to get sound reactive to work (i.e. music to your lights), this is available in the 0.15.x version of WLED. This is how you enable it on the Athom LS8P-WLED:
Then when you go to effects, the one with music notes on them will respond to sound:
@Anto79-ops that’s awesome that you got it working! I had the same idea - I purchased a Ericsity WLED controller from Amazon and am planning to replace the gemstone controller with that. I am not brave enough to do it before the Christmas season or suffer my wife’s wrath, so I’m planning to do it in the spring when it’s warmer.
You mentioned before that you just need the data line from the 4 pin connector - did you also connect the VCC and GND as well? Or did you leave that out?
I know that there’s additional power injection along the LED strips so just wondering if it should be left out or not because it was connected to the gemstone controller originally.
