Hi all,
I want to run the 3meters(10 feet) 60leds/m strip 4m(13 feet) away from the esp8266 and PSU. I am not sure I don’t reinvent the wheel, so i need your help please. I have a few options, but they don’t seem to be good enough:
a)
ws2812b 3m, 5v, ~60W
4m 14AWG wire(2.5mm2)
I’ve calculated the voltage drop on cable, and it seems to be ~1.4V, so the strip will get only 3.6volts, which I guess is not enough, not to mention the DIN pin.
b)
ws2811 3m, 12v, ~60W
4m 14AWG wire(2.5mm2)
This one is better: the voltage drop is low, I believe it will light the strip. But that still leaves the question of DIN pin. ESP’s out is 3.3V, and can be converted with some bi-directional 3.3v - 5v logic converter. But even 5v(especially PWM) I assume will have a high voltage/data loss. I assume I can use some MOSFET like IRLB8721PbF to amplify the PWM signal, but not sure if it will work like that, especially since ws2811 consume 800kHz rate PWM.
The ESP8266 & ESP32 natively operates at 3.3v but the Digital Addressable LED strips expect 5v for their input logic signals. Often, sending 3.3v will work but if you start using longer cable runs or longer LED strips, errors can start to show up. Feeding a correct 5v fixes these issues!
Thanks, but it still will be dropped to ~3.4V considering wire length. I know that some people control their strips by 3.3V directly from ESP, but sometimes it does not work.
I think your calculations might be a bit off. If you measure the supply voltage(est 10A) the drop ends in the high 3V range. However if you only send 1 amp it’s 4.88v at the end.
They use these modules for long runs of permanent christmas lighting up to 800 led’s per module. Rob the hook up and dr zzz’s have a lot of youtube video’s that really go in depth.
Lol, can’t believe that I made such stupid misstake. I calculated this right after the voltage drop on power wires, and forgot to change the load to lower, left it as 60W… Thanks a lot
