power supply for a ws2811

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camilozk
 
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power supply for a ws2811

Post by camilozk »

Ey guys!

I would like to expose my experience trying to feed a 150 Leds ws2811, that I want to test with Adafruit´s strandtest.ino

the strips specs are:

5M / 150 RGB LEDS
WS2811 IC control 3 LED Chip
Work Voltage: DC12V
Work Current: 3A

I am testing the strip with 2 different power supplies.

1 (12V / 1200mA / 14.4W). It seems to be reading the information correctly, but not all the Leds react. This power supply is obviously not enough to feed the strip, that requires 36W / 3A

2 (12V / 5A / 60W). This power supply should be more than enough to feed this strip. Nevertheless, when I connect it, every Led turns on with a bit of red & green. When I trigger the strandtest I see that it is also reacting to this information, but every Led continue being ON with this red & green colour... This is very weird. Should I assume that it is a problem of the power supply?

hope you see the light where I see only confusion!!!

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

The WS2811 is a 5V part. You can't feed it 12V. You've probably burned them all out.

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camilozk
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by camilozk »

ey rick! thanks for your answer.

both the product description in ebay, and the led strip, say that the led strip work at 12V. The strip has the value "12V" printed every 10cm.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281261795832?ss ... 1439.l2649

What do you reckon?

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Here's the data sheet. It pretty clearly states that the absolute maximum power supply voltage is 6-7V. The output voltage is 12V, but that's what goes to the LEDs
http://www.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2811.pdf

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camilozk
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by camilozk »

I understand what you say, but doesn´t it contradicts what the seller in ebay is stating, and what the led strip says?

led strip pcb has printed:

12V
Do/Din
GND

doesn´t this mean that I should feed it 12V?

I am totally confused

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

I don't know anything about what's being sold on eBay. Perhaps you should contact the vendor for clarification.

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camilozk
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by camilozk »

Hi rick!

I found the reason why it was not working. THE GROUND OF THE LED STRIP HAS TO BE CONNECTED TO THE GROUND OF THE ARDUINO BOARD. this is the reason why it didn´t work and it works now.

CONCLUSIONS: the strip works with 12V, and I am using a 1200mA power supply so far, which seems to be enough so far. I´ve tried it with the strandtest.ino sketch, the RGBCalibrate from the "fastled" library, and my own sketch.

Also the strip is not fully addressable. Color is only controllable in groups of three LEDs.

Now I am facing a different problem: I am using the "RGBCalibrate" sketch from the "fastled" library, and I have identified that the right order for the leds to display the colours correctly is "BRG", but when I try to change it in my sketch, which uses "Adafruit_NeoPixel.h" library, the IDE tells me "ws2811:59: error: 'NEO_BRG' was not declared in this scope". Apparently this configuration is not declared in the library. Would you please help me sorting this out?

THANKS!

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

We can only support products that we sell. Clearly the strips you purchased from eBay are different from what we carry. The seller should be able to provide you with a suitable library and technical support for the products they sell.

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camilozk
 
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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by camilozk »

oh!
Last edited by camilozk on Thu Mar 05, 2015 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: power supply for a ws2811

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Customer support is indeed our first priority. It is a shame that other vendors do not provide support for the products they sell.

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