Tasmota: ws2812 (what am i doing wrong)

[prankousky]

Hi everybody,

I am using this (backside)WS2812 LED strip with a nodeMCU and external power supply (MB-102).

Tasmota Firmware is Sonoff-Tasmota 6.3.0.1 von Theo Arends.

The nodeMCU gets power via USB cable and the LED stick gets power via the MB-102. I used a 12V/2A plug. The power supply converts this down to 3.3/5V, which can be controlled via a switch.

I connect 4x 100 Ohm resistors in a row to D6, then connected the DIN of the strip to this. I have tried it without the 400 Ohm in between the strip and the nodeMCU as well (with a different stick,this one was "fresh"), but the result was pretty much as described below.

As soon as I connect the power supply, the LED strip lighs up very bright white. The slider in the webGUI does not make a difference, at least not a noticeable one. The strip is flickering a lot, so I cannot tell if the slider makes a difference or if it's just regular flickering.

First I set pixels 10 because that is the number of LED there are. Commands such a color red or led1 red, led1 led10 red, scheme 1, don't produce results that I can understand. Sometimes it flickers, sometimes nothing happens at all. Colors hardly change at all (regardless of giving the WS2812 3.3 or 5V).

The scheme command does something... But I cannot see any pattern in it. The color command seems to not do anything at all. If I just use color I get the correct output, so the nodeMCU must have accepted the command.

I have tried this with some long WS2812 strips before and gave up. I thought I just had insufficient power supplies and that's why it wouldn't work. But this little 10LED strip should be fine with 5V, right?

As mentioned before, I have also tried this with and without the resistors. Different tutorials gave different results, some people use them, others don't. I figured I'd start with them, so I won't damage the strip.

I have tried connected ground to either of the GND pins. I don't see why there are two, but there was no noticable different after doing this, either.

Do I just keep getting low quality hardware (I ordered both these little led strips as well as the longer ones off aliexpress) and that's why they won't work? Am I wiring them incorrectly? Am I missing any commands or configuration when setting them up and trying to control them via mqtt or console?

This is getting pretty annoying because anything else I have tried with Tasmota (both on different Sonoff and other vendors' hardware and on nodeMCUs/ESPs) works perfectly. Just not controlling WS2812.

I also control a WS2801 with the H801 hardware (also flashed with Tasmota), which works fine. I would prefer the WS2812 over this because of individual LED control, though.

Did search more than just once or twice but never found a tutorial on how to setup, wire, and control the WS2812 with Tasmota. Maybe somebody here would be willing to explain this to me?

Thank you in advance for your help. This must be my 5th attempt (2nd with these little LED sticks) and I have some cool ideas I'd love to realize if only I could reliably control them.

👍

[ascillato]

I'm sorry to know that it is not working for you. I have Tasmota with a common ws2812 100 leds strip (with its own 5V 1A power supply) and works fantastic with Tasmota. So, seems that it is not an standard WS2812, may be it is a clone or similar. In the photo of the back of your device say 2812 not WS2812. May be it is not the same.

How is the controller that your seller has for that led strip? may be it is an special one with its own protocol.

On how to install a WS2812, I just connect DATA and GND from my NodeMCU with Tasmota to the WS2812. Also I connect the 5V and GND from the power supply to the WS2812.

Remember to connect all GND together. The GND from all your DC sources, your Tasmota and your Led Strip.

Do you have all GND connected together?

[ascillato2]

Hi

Have you managed to solve your issue?

[prankousky]

Thank you for the information. I read last night but did not get around to test connecting both grounds (which is probably the reason for this).

I will try and then report back by this afternoon, okay?

[ascillato2]

Ok. So, if you didn't have GND connected that was the issue. Thanks for sharing that.

[prankousky]

I just tried. Connecting both GNDs was the issue. I feel pretty dumb not realizing that before. So the original issue is closed.

Can I ask more about the WS2812 on here, ir should I open a new issue? (I will just ask and if you say no I will remove my questions)

My led strip actually only has 8 instead of 10, so I changed to pixels 8. In order to "start fresh", I turned the strip off and back on via console. So here is what I did and what happened:

1. color 1 = all led turn red
2. led 1 color 2 = third led turns green
3. led color 2 = second led turns green (so now, 2 and 3 are green)

So I messed around with rotation and width, but put them back to original values. Now when I do color 1 and then led 1 color 2, the third led turns green.

I already checked, there is no led 0, so I don't understand why I cannot control the first led by itself.

I am still constantly checking with the commands page, but cannot figure out how to control individual leds precisely.

Now I did color 3, turning all LED blue. led 1 color 1 kept led1 blue but turned led 2 and 3 red.

While general commands (like just color <number>) work fine, I assume everything is connected properly now. But addressing individual leds is still a mystery to me.

[ascillato]

Don't ask to ask, just ask ;)

Seems that rotation or other config is not default. Try reset 4 command to go back to default settings to start fresh.

[prankousky]

OK thanks. Wasn't sure how strict you guys are here once an issue is closed ;)

I typed this entire long thing and now realized that I had been addressing the color values incorrectly the entire time!

led1 color2 or led6 color4 would sometimes work and sometimes produce weird results (actually switching led3 instead of led6 etc). but if i ignore these colorN values and use led5 990099, for example, everything works as expected.

now, this is completely on me! i thought to myself i'd use actual rgb values later when i can be sure everything works. but not using those rgb values seems to be the reason things did not work properly.

thank you so much. now i can finally get started on my led projects =)

[ascillato]

Great! :+1: