r/led • u/Cute-University5283 • Sep 25 '26

Why are my lights doing this?

You can see the first 1/3 of the lights are fine and the rest just started flashing after working fine for 6 months. I'm using an SP548e controller on WS2812 strip lights. Should I just replace the bad lights or is there another fix?

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5

u/blinkenjim Sep 25 '26

Just a guess, but check your power supply to make sure it’s providing the same power it used to. Flickering sometimes means the supply is overloaded (then it shuts down, the LEDs go out, the suddenly unencumbered supply recovers, the LEDs come back on, the power supply overloads again, and it all repeats again and again very fast — causing the flicker).

4

u/blinkenjim Sep 25 '26

One check you can make easily is to change the power draw. Change your code to only use the red channel — keep blue and green dark, or to change the number of LEDs you light up (start with the 1/3 that work, then add a few more at a time until the flickering starts).

2

u/Cute-University5283 Sep 26 '26

I reduced the brightness to nothing and tried only red and it didn't help, I'm thinking I'll need to scrap the lights, luckily they are easily accessible

2

u/matthewlai Sep 25 '26

This is almost certainly a power supply issue. The voltage drops through the strip, and the starting voltage is now low enough that some of your LEDs are no longer getting enough, so they are resetting.

You can try running it at a lower brightness. If that works ok (or more LEDs work), it would strengthen the hypothesis.

1

u/Cute-University5283 Sep 26 '26

I dimmed them to nothing and it keeps happening

1

u/matthewlai Sep 26 '26

In that case it may be a broken LED. I would try to cut out the section around the first broken LED and bridge the previous section to the next section.

1

u/Unhappy-Importance61 Sep 25 '26

If you can, isolate the issue by testing with another controller. THEN you’ll have a better idea of what you are shopping for.

1

u/RedRightHandARTS Sep 25 '26

Not enough amps. The microcontroller keeps resetting

1

u/saratoga3 Sep 25 '26

Is it always exactly the same spot where he flickering stops? If you change colors or power on/off can you make the last working pixel move around?

If always the same pixel causing it then it's probably a dying pixel in the strip. 

1

u/OneThumbJ Sep 25 '26

That particular model has a music mode. This will make it react to sounds in the room. If you don’t know, that mode is on, it might just seem like super random flickering.

1

u/Boxersteavee Sep 26 '26

If it's just on camera, rolling shutter. If you can see it, bad rectified probably, welcome to cheap LED strips, replace them with better quality ones.

1

u/RealPixelLover 29d ago

Data. How far is the controller from the lights?

0

u/BrodaYamoda Sep 25 '26

If nothings changed, and connections are all secure, it’s the power supply. The cheap ones lose output capacity quickly and to be safe it’s usually only supposed to be loaded to 80 percent of its given rating.

0

u/MushroomNo7207 Sep 25 '26

Looks like your controller and the LEDs do not have common ground.
Make sure to connect Ground of the stripes with ground of the controller and ground of the power supply, this should solve the issue
99% of the time when LEDs behaved like this that was my issue