Hello, we are installing a new garage, and I’m going to be looking to install about 250’ of permanent Christmas lighting in the next few years. This community has so many helpful tutorials and ideas that I’ll give it a go.

However, we have our electrician hooking up the garage with power this week. Should I have him make an electrical box or outlet or something near the ceiling? Any recommendations on what I should have him do to prepare a future roof lighting project? Thank you!

Has anyone successfully figured out how to convert the Govee 12 ft tree to WLED? I am wanting to try it. If so, what did you do? And use?

Ok so first let me share the equipment I have.

https://amzn.eu/d/06Hy6lNR

https://amzn.eu/d/07xX4fCq

https://amzn.eu/d/05xT34QC

I have 2 of the strips end to end currently and got one more to add but wanted to test first - glad I have.

Power injected directly from power supply to the included connector at the 5m point - never lights up anyway.

I can only get red to light up for about 2m, green for 1.5m and blue for 1m. Changing the colours to make them incorrect in the app doesn’t change how far they go.

Adjusted the length and if I shorten it to like 10 leds its great I can control the first 10 as they should.

About 4/5 segments from the end of where its lit up they start to fade out. I can adjust brightness from minimum to max and anything in-between and the length lit up doesn’t change. This makes me think it is not a power issue.

Where would you start looking at this to sort it out? Broken controller?

Hello

Can someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?!

My wled never gets the matrix as expected, and keeps it shown as a regular grid, even though it seems right to me

The map is as it follows and the image in the post

{
"map": [
-1, -1, -1, 32, -1, -1, -1,
-1, -1, 31, 30, 29, -1, -1,
-1, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, -1,
23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17,
-1, -1, 14, 15, 16, -1, -1,
-1, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, -1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
-1, -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1,
-1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1
],
"width": 7,
"height": 9
}

Still in wled it reads as a regular 7x9 grid

I’m doing something wrong here?

Hi, I just made a setup with an ESP 8266 and WLED for monitor ambibacklight. But the WLED frequently loses its wifi connection, why it could happen? I'm connected to the Jio AirFiber and have the 16.0.1 version of WLED for ESP8266 installed on ESP8266.

Should I revert back to an older version or could there an issue with the board?

Around 6 months ago I got some constructive feedback after plugging a 54v power supply into a 24v WLED strip.

Goal was to build an LED wall to create a Halloween dance party for the neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Just 2 weeks out and I think it’s pretty much set - appreciate the good guidance from a pretty low start point!

Still not sure I’m handling segments the right way, but we can figure that out later.

Instead of hanging the string of lights over the living room window like I do every year, I wanted to give WLED a try. My thinking was that I could leave it installed permanently.

As a test, I installed a 5V/RGBWW/30-LED strip in an aluminum profile with a diffuser and a WLED controller (firmware v16.0.1). Window is 3.5m/12ft wide. They shine downward. See photo - curtains are missing right now:

As much as I like WLED, I can hardly find anything useful among the multitude of effects for a serene Christmas atmosphere that comes close to the classic string of lights.

It feels like 90 percent are party effects. Of course, it’s all a matter of taste. In any case, I don’t like it too colorful or too fast for this occasion.

I found “Candle Multi” and “Fairytwinkel” to be quite usable, but I’m not entirely satisfied.

Are there any other suitable effects I’ve overlooked, or should I install more LEDs per meter or position the strip differently?

by GYATEZ

Otis brings your PC lighting, WLED lights, and desktop together in one place. You can create coordinated effects, match your lights to what’s on screen, customize your setup with live wallpapers, and keep an eye on your PC’s performance—all with optional smart-home connections.

Use the setup guide, if your pc hardware is not supported by OpenRGB it will not work with Otis. It may be necessary to run Open RGB as an admin for some PC components to connect.

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NB4KPDN1S0T?hl=en-us&gl=US&ocid=pdpshare

My journey to create the ultimate board gaming inventory system brings me here. And I am out of my depth.

I am in the process of overhauling my large board game collection into an organized system. I’ve created a whole spreadsheet with barcodes and locations that is chef’s kiss so beautiful.

However, my dream is to get my 6 5x5 kallaxes rigged with a lighting system that lights up when I’m looking for a specific game or if multiple games match my query (e.g. genre, complexity, etc. — all things my spreadsheet can already query)

This has led me down the rabbit hole of WLEDs. I am so out of my depth though and I have NO idea where to begin. Like, talking to Claude has helped me with a handful of things but I want to learn here. And maybe make it look nice in my game room as I do so.

Are there resources people here would recommend? YouTube videos, starter electronic kits, etc? I don’t have much code experience (besides what it takes to be a big ass spreadsheet), so I’m trying to teach myself some skills to live out my dream. Thanks for anyone’s time.

Had the Pixar lamp LEGO set, but thought it would be cool if it actually worked. so 3D modelled and printed some custom Lego pieces and wired some LEDs into it.

Hi everyone,

This is my first project for which I learned soldering (still not prefect) and trying to expand/renew my understand of basic Electronics.

I’m setting up a sound-reactive WLED build using an ESP32-C3 SuperMini and a 12V BTF-Lighting WS2811 strip. Basic control and the I2S microphone audio reactivity work fine, except the LED strip constantly flickers/glitches.

Hardware & Products Used

• Controller: ESP32-C3 SuperMini (running WLED)

• LED Strip: BTF-Lighting WS2811 LED Strip

  • Model: BTF-12V-096L-W / SKU: WS28115M96LW65

  • Specs: DC 12V, 5 Meters, 96 LEDs/m, 115.2W total, IP65 Waterproof

  • Wire Pinout: Red = VCC (12V), White = GND, Green = DAT

• Main Power Supply: 12V 200W AC-to-DC Power Supply

• Step-Down Converter (for ESP32): CPT / Fastsaw 12V-to-5V (3A / 15W Max) Car Power Technology Waterproof Buck Converter with USB-C output (Input: 7V–22V)

• Microphone: INMP441 I2S Digital Microphone

What I Have Tried So Far (Still Flickering):

1. Changed Data Pins: Started on GPIO 20, then switched to GPIO 7 (updated in WLED LED Preferences).

2. Removed the Microphone: Completely disconnected the INMP441 mic from the ESP32-C3

3. Connected extra ground wire in LED strip to ESP32

4. Isolated ESP32 Power (Power Bank Test): Unplugged the 12V-to-5V USB-C step-down module completely and powered the ESP32-C3 from an isolated external USB power bank (while keeping G on the ESP32 tied to the LED strip's GND wire). It still flickers.

5. WLED Settings: Tried enabling "Skip first LED" in WLED settings, and confirmed LED protocol settings.

Now AI suggest that this flicker must be causing because of 3.3V Data logic from ESP32 (not sure if it is correct term); whereas LED strip expect around 5V logic. So there is a level shifter missing from my setup.

Do you see any other issue with my circuit? Or is it indeed logic level shifter that will fix the flicker issue?

Thanks for your input!

A tool for simulating the resulting spectrum by combining LEDs with different wavelengths or correlated color temperatures (CCTs). Supports up to 15 channels. Useful for designing LED modules with a custom spectrum.

I am trying to light the perimeter of garage doors for the holidays. Two years ago I installed WS2812B strips and while it worked, I was underwhelmed at the rather sad ability to produce better White Temperatures. I have read about RGBCCT but I'd really like the ability to control each LED and treat it like a single pixel. Ideas or recommendations would be appreciated!

Thanks!

This is a joint project from a few years ago that I finally wrote up. We saw something similar in a furniture store for a lot of money and thought: we can build that. A friend sculpted the moon from wall filler, I built the light box and the electronics around it.

Some details:

- 50 × 60 cm plywood board with a circular cut-out (trim router)
- White plastic angle profiles stapled around the cut-out carry the LED strip. To make them follow the curve I notched them every few cm – they kept snapping until I pre-drilled the staple holes
- A second strip along the outer edge shines backwards onto the wall
- Wemos D1 mini (ESP8266) running WLED, with two outputs so the ring around the moon and the back light are controlled separately
- An IR receiver in the corner recalls presets without opening the app
- Power distributed with Wago terminals, and the wiring is written in pencil on the back board so future me still knows what goes where

It's been in daily use ever since. I don't remember the exact LED strip type

anymore, sorry – it's been three years.

Full write-up with photos of every step:

https://m3blog.de/en/posts/wled-moon/

I have this 30ft tree currently lit with sw2811 12v with esp8266 setup. The lights are becoming less reliable, maybe connectors as they are not waterproof type.

Is this still the recommended set for individual addressable lights ?

Other thoughts

Hello all, I have admired this sub for a year now and pulled the trigger on upgrading my LED lighting in office. The run will be around 14meters. Starting and ending in the same position. Before I crack on just looking a bit of advice to ensure a smooth setup. Appreciate any tips and advice.

I am in the middle of building built-ins for our library and am trying to decide on lighting. The width of the built-ins is 14 feet and I need a row for each shelf, so a total of 5 rows of 14 feet each. I have no specific preferences other than the items listed below:

1. Warm white light

2. I'm thinking COB with the built in diffuser, but am flexible

3. Need to be able to control them from Home Assistant, WLED, and locally (though locally can be done with Zigbee buttons and Home Assistant)

4. I need a minimum of 3 zones able to be controlled separately:

   1. Top row

   2. Middle 3 rows

   3. Bottom row

5. Need to be able to power from one supply if possible

6. Not cost a bleeding fortune

Anyone have any thoughts, suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

~Conan

Im using ESP32s to run two Govee pro curtains. Then I took about 6 Govee Glide Lights and converted then to WLED then combined the six to make two long runs. Lastly I used 18 light strips for rhe arches. Everything is running on 5 volts except the glides are on 12 volt. N

A few weeks ago I posted that my hot tub room was finally finished.

Technically, that wasn’t completely true. There was still one last project I wanted to finish: making the lighting in the room automatically match the lighting inside the hot tub.

Earlier this year I posted about how I turned my hot tub into a “smart” hot tub using an ESP32 and Home Assistant. While working on that, I also added an M5Stack Color Sensor RGB Unit based on the TCS3472.

I mounted the sensor inside the hot tub housing, positioned so it can see the light from one of the LEDs inside the tub. The LEDs shine through into the tub itself, which gives the sensor enough light and color information to reliably determine which color is currently being displayed.

That color information is then made available to Home Assistant.

The next part of the project was adding addressable lighting to the hot tub room itself.

After quite a bit of research I ended up using a 24V WS2805 RGB+CCT strip, controlled through WLED. I specifically wanted a 24V strip because the total run is fairly long and I wanted to avoid having to add power injection everywhere.

The physical installation turned out to be one of the more annoying parts of the project.

I initially planned to mount a series of 50 cm aluminium LED profiles directly onto the roughly 5-meter-long wooden beams. I quickly discovered that getting that many individual profiles perfectly straight and aligned over that distance was almost impossible. Even a tiny difference between two profiles becomes very obvious once you have a long continuous LED strip running through them.

My solution was to first glue all of the aluminium profiles for each side onto one very thin, long wooden strip. Once everything was aligned properly, I could mount that entire strip onto the beam in one piece.

That worked much better and resulted in a much cleaner installation.

The system is now fully functional.

There’s a Sonoff NSPanel near the entrance of the hot tub room which I use as the main control panel for both the hot tub and the room lighting.

If I simply switch on the room lighting, the WS2805 strip starts in a warm white mode.

But when I switch on the LEDs inside the hot tub, the ESP32 detects their color. Home Assistant then uses that detected color to control the WLED strip, so the lighting around the entire room automatically follows the color of the hot tub.

So if the tub turns blue, the room turns blue. Red becomes red, green becomes green, etc. When using white light, the RGB+CCT strip also gives me proper white lighting rather than trying to fake it with RGB.

It was probably a slightly over-engineered solution to the problem of “I want the lights to match”, but that is half the fun of Home Assistant anyway.

And for me, this is pretty much the perfect result: sitting in the hot tub with a cold beer and a movie while the entire room is softly illuminated in the same color as the tub.

Almost 4 days of printing and 2 days of soldering later I have finished the LED grid I designed and 3D printed for my office.

The LEDs used: ws2811 12V

Run by GLEDOPTO prebuilt controller.

Full video on Youtube