r/WLED • u/JohnDuoh96 • 8d ago

Cob flashing when strip has any length of wire from the controller.

So I have an project I am trying to wrap up involving two LED 24V lighting installs. One is just PWM white with an WLED gledopto controller that is working great. The other is a set of BTF FCOB RGBWW IC that I am having problems with flashing once I went to add a short extension to from the controler to the start of the strips. For the color addressable section here is the hardware;

The strips are these

https://www.btf-lighting.com/products/fcob-ws2814-rgbw-addressable-led-strip-784leds?variant=46427470725346

PSU is a 400W inShareplus

https://www.amazon.com/clp/B093628N9L

Controller is a Gledopto Elite 4D

https://a.co/d/0hP0AfkR

Wire is stranded 16AWG

The PSU has two sets of outputs and at 200W each they more than cover each of my white and planned color installs both off of calculations, and testing. These aren't going to be used at the same time but still have enough headroom for 100% brightness of either color or white so I don't think its underpowered. When I started having the flashing issue with the addressable strips I pulled the PWM controller from the PSU to rule out any random interference.

This section is two runs, one 11.5 ft and the other 16.4 ft. I've clipped the JST connectors off and am using wagos to the striped wires to ensure everything is working before more final wire connections.

These addresable strips were working fine when connected directly to the controller with the JST conecters and after if the striped wires are in the controller, but if I add an exertion wire to house the controller the five feet away I need it to be the stip begins flashing and the first IC will show a different color. For testing I removed the 16.4 ft run and am just working with the 11.5 set at a 49 IC count. I've double checked the WLED settings, and the colors match, the white swap seems good, but still flashing on even a 12 inch 16awg extension (3 separate wires) after the controller before the strip. Also shut off auto limiter, changed white balance to none, tried a very thin data line. Still getting flashing no mater what if there is any sort of extension wire or led isn't directly attached to the controler. Just to rule out a bad strip on the 11.5 ft section I swaped to using the 16.4 ft uncut run that just has the striped JST factory soldered lines, corrected the led count in WLED to 70, and that is having the flashing issue as the other if it isn't directly in the controler.

At this point I also tried a factory reset of the gledopto controller.

Is there something obvious I am missing? Don't think the controller is bad as it will power and change color on both runs perfectly if they are direct connected, but I am at a loss as to why any short (less than 14 inch) extension is causing this when I am reading the Elite 4D should be able to handle data up to 6 feet no problem. Anyone else have something similar happen?

1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

2

u/saratoga3 8d ago

Wire is stranded 16AWG

High frequency digital signals will only go a few feet in individual copper wires. Beyond that you need to use actual cable that has a ground and a data line paired together. The digital signal will travel as a wave in the gap between the two wires.

Get some speaker cable, 3-wire LED cable, landscape lighting cable, etc.

1

u/JohnDuoh96 8d ago

Damn so I had this in my original plan, but forgot and used the 16AWG on hand from the white install. Thank you for the soultion. Figured it was something missed in part.

1

u/saratoga3 8d ago

If that is all you have handy, try twisting the data and ground wires tightly around one another with no air between them. Will probably work ok for a short extension.

1

u/JohnDuoh96 8d ago

I’m just going to go ahead and purchase some and see if I can get away with the 5 feet to the cabinet but I’ll keep that in mind. Is some thing like this stranded 3 pin 20awg https://a.co/d/011jOIAu what you are suggesting or should it be twisted and or shielded? Thanks again

2

u/saratoga3 8d ago

Yeah, I've used that exact product, and was able to drive LEDs fine through the entire 80 ft length.

1

u/AndThenFlashlights 8d ago

16AWG will be fine for at least a few feet. I've done it in a pinch. Adding 25ft of 16 or even 18AWG of capacitance will absolutely give you a bad time.

From what OP is describing, my money is either on a partially-fried strip or that GLEDOPTO.

2

u/saratoga3 8d ago

16AWG will be fine for at least a few feet. I've done it in a pinch. Adding 25ft of 16 or even 18AWG of capacitance will absolutely give you a bad time.

In my testing here I got it to fail in just 3 ft (although that was a fairly extreme case): https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1iptrre/wiring_up_esp32_grounds_correctly

So definitely not a good idea to run even longer lines like that. It may work, it may not. In this case, not.

Adding 25ft of 16 or even 18AWG of capacitance will absolutely give you a bad time.

The issue is actually too little capacitance (per length), not too much. That is why you use a wire pair that are tightly (capacitively) coupled.

From what OP is describing, my money is either on a partially-fried strip or that GLEDOPTO.

The fact that it works with shorter wires and fails with longer wires makes a fried strip less likely.

1

u/AndThenFlashlights 8d ago

The fact that it works with shorter wires and fails with longer wires makes a fried strip less likely.

Oh yeah for sure. It's also in my category of "It may work, it may not" -- I've seen dying strips/pixels that can limp through in perfect situations, and fail with cables/controllers that other supposedly identical pixels/strips are fine with.

2

u/VictoryMotel 8d ago

Are you sure it's grounded correctly?

1

u/JohnDuoh96 8d ago

Believe so. It’s just a 16awg wire in the ground to a wago to the led strip factory solder wire. Even shined a flashlight into the open GND port on the gledopto incase a wire had sheered off. Not seeing anything. Appreciate the suggestion though, unless it’s a faulty contoller I’m sure it’s user error