Fastled: Makerfocus D1 Mini NodeMcu (ESP8266) + WS2811 daisy chain flicker

[Drivium]

Following tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y6jUM1OaYM and purchased everything from the description. All set up and working beautifully...except for flickering down the string of LED strings. First string has no flickering, but gets progressively worse with each daisy chained string.

Here is my wiring setup: https://imgur.com/a/jZaoc

Here is all of the hardware I'm using:
LED Lights: Rextin 50PCS WS2811 IC Pixels Digital Addressable LED String Lights Waterproof RGB Full Color 12mm DC 5V (50PCS)
Raspberry PI: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit - 32 GB Edition
Arduino: Makerfocus D1 Mini NodeMcu 4M Bytes Lua WIFI Development Board Base on ESP8266 ESP-12F N Compatible NodeMcu Arduino
Power Supply: ALITOVE 5V 60A 300W Power Supply Transformer Adapter Converter AC110V/220V to DC 5V 60amp Charger for WS2812B WS2811 WS2801 APA102 LED Strip Pixel Light

Things I've tried:

1. Adding these lines: #define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0 and #define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 0 (described here: https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED/issues/306)

1. Rearranging #Includes as described here: https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/24934-Confounding-Flicker-with-WS2812-strips-and-OctoWS2811-on-Teesny-3-1

No success so far. Admittedly, this is the first time I've ever worked with ANY of these components.

This is the code in the description of the tutorial I'm using:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Snipercaine/Holiday-LED-files/master/OutsideLEDs_PublicOTA2.ino

Any help would be very much appreciated. I'm waiting to hang them until I figure this out and we're nearly midway through Dec! :) Thanks in advance.

[Blink515]

Add the 2 lines of code as explained here
https://youtu.be/s5yLLtPrKAM?t=4m50s and it should resolve the issue.

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 11:22 AM, Drivium [e-mail] wrote:

Following tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y6jUM1OaYM and
purchased everything from the description. All set up and working
beautifully...except for flickering down the string of LED strings. First
string has no flickering, but gets progressively worse with each daisy
chained string.

Here is my wiring setup: https://imgur.com/a/jZaoc

Here is all of the hardware I'm using:
LED Lights: Rextin 50PCS WS2811 IC Pixels Digital Addressable LED String
Lights Waterproof RGB Full Color 12mm DC 5V (50PCS)
Raspberry PI: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit - 32 GB Edition
Arduino: Makerfocus D1 Mini NodeMcu 4M Bytes Lua WIFI Development Board
Base on ESP8266 ESP-12F N Compatible NodeMcu Arduino
Power Supply: ALITOVE 5V 60A 300W Power Supply Transformer Adapter
Converter AC110V/220V to DC 5V 60amp Charger for WS2812B WS2811 WS2801
APA102 LED Strip Pixel Light

Things I've tried:

1.

Adding these lines: #define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0 and #define
FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 0 (described here: #306
https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED/issues/306)
2.

Rearranging #Includes as described here: https://forum.pjrc.com/
threads/24934-Confounding-Flicker-with-WS2812-strips-
and-OctoWS2811-on-Teesny-3-1
https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/24934-Confounding-Flicker-with-WS2812-strips-and-OctoWS2811-on-Teesny-3-1

No success so far. Admittedly, this is the first time I've ever worked
with ANY of these components.

This is the code in the description of the tutorial I'm using:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Snipercaine/Holiday-LED-
files/master/OutsideLEDs_PublicOTA2.ino

Any help would be very much appreciated. I'm waiting to hang them until I
figure this out and we're nearly midway through Dec! :) Thanks in advance.

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[Drivium]

Not sure how I missed this video. Thank you! I'll give this a go and report back.

[Blink515]

You are injecting power every so often down the strip of LEDs too right?
I'm not sure if Dr Zzs mentions having to do that in his videos or not.
Just having a large power supply isn't sufficient since the voltage will
drop after long runs of wire.

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 11:36 AM, Drivium [e-mail] wrote:

Not sure how I missed this video. Thank you! I'll give this a go and
report back.

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[Drivium]

@Blink515 I haven't done this yet as a permanent part of the setup, but I did test and verified that injecting power down the line DOES increase brightness and corrects color issues, but has no noticeable impact on flickering.

[Drivium]

Made all of the mods from the video, but flicker persists. Not sure what else to try.

[the-magister]

Your pi is 3.3v. The strips take their signals at 5v. See "level shifter".
Make sure the level shifter can handle the signal rate.

---

Mike (@mobile)

On Dec 10, 2017 11:44 AM, "Drivium" [e-mail] wrote:

Made all of the mods from the video, but flicker persists. Not sure what
else to try.

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[MFornander]

Yes you need a level shifter. This is what we used to get everything working with hundreds of LEDs adn 8266: https://www.tindie.com/products/jasoncoon/wemos-d1-mini-esp8266-level-shifter-mini-shield/

[thigger]

Another thing to consider - are they definitely WS2811 and not 2812B? The timing requirements are slightly different and I've just fixed a flickering issue using ESP8266:

https://plus.google.com/102754903922110930885/posts/UfBwA5eiNbL

[Drivium]

@thigger yea, according to their packaging - WS2811. @the-magister @MFornander Level shifter ordered. I'll report back once received, installed, and tested. :)

[focalintent]

I’ve started seeing reports of leds marked WS2811 but wanting WS2812 timings - so also try setting the led type to WS2812 or WS2812B

[Drivium]

@focalintent Ok, I'll give that a shot as well.

UPDATE: Modding LED type also made no difference. Seems the level shifter is the final hope!

[brendanmatkin]

This might be old but I've also had that happen once with a bad LED in the chain (they were flickering red only). Try re-arranging your strips and see if it helps?

In my case the flickering started way past the actual bad LED (i.e. the flickering wasn't apparent until at least a few dozen LEDs past the bad one).

[skullthug]

@Drivium what ever became of this issue? Did the level shifter do anything for you?
I ask because I'm in the near exact same setup & situation.

EDIT:
I didn't try the editing of clockless_esp8266.h (changing WAIT_TIME to 18) until now, because I was suspicious of it working. But hey it did work! So I figured I'd post if anyone else on the internet stumbles on here as well.
Fix from this video: https://youtu.be/s5yLLtPrKAM?t=308