[HN Gopher] WLED Project
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WLED Project
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 173 points
Date : 2022-12-23 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kno.wled.ge)
(TXT) w3m dump (kno.wled.ge)
| jsjohnst wrote:
| If you really want to get serious with WLED, check out the new
| Quinled-Dig-Octa boards. Super affordable and hands down the
| easiest way to get thousands of lights setup. 50-100A of LEDs, no
| problem! You'll spend more on the power supply than you will on
| Quindor's top notch boards.
|
| https://quinled.info
|
| (Not affiliated in any way except being a very happy customer)
| leros wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I'm about to build a 20-30m long
| installation of LEDs and I've been working out the power
| distribution needs and such. This site is a perfect resource.
| khimaros wrote:
| +1000, we built a large scale art installation using Quinn's
| DigQuad. they were easily the single most significant and
| prudent technical decision made for our project. amazing
| community, documentation, and high quality product.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Any chance of a link or photo or something?
| whatusername wrote:
| I'm curious -- why something small like a DigQuad and not
| something beefier like a Falcon/Kulp?
|
| (I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "large scale" -- but
| WLED/ESP32 doesn't really tick the large box for me)
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Not sure how it compares, but I've been using the Evil Genius
| Labs breakout boards for Wemos D1 and ESP32. They do level
| shifting and provide very convenient access for attaching
| multiple LED strips and using them with FastLED or WLED.
|
| Currently running the Christmas lights from one of these, and
| I've had another one banging around for a couple of years
| running a LED strip that goes around the kids' bicycle trailer,
| surviving frost and rain and salt spray, just powered off a USB
| powerbank.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Any one new to LEDs and trying to learn some basics, Here's
| 'Secret life of components' by Tim Hunkin[1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvcITqw5iDY
| hexo wrote:
| Very nice, I have some questions tho - did esp got better than it
| used to be? I mean - all esp devices i've used had MTBF between
| 1-2 weeks. And what about zigbee 3.0 - how does it compare to
| this (from all points of view)?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| ESP boards are Wifi, Zigbee is a completely different protocol
| with encryption and mesh capabilities and all that.
| thewataccount wrote:
| I've had really good uptime once I added a capacitor on the
| power rails. This was onto one of those WEMOS boards and a few
| others too.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think there's some common-mode failure source in your
| particular application.
|
| I've had several dozen of them running some in vehicles,
| outside lightly shielded, in a basement, and on my desk. Some
| are running right off an 18650 with no boost/buck converter. No
| failures in several years , across low-end cheapest 8266
| breakouts and 32s.
| hackmiester wrote:
| Are you maybe overvolting your ESPs? I've had an ESP8266
| outdoors (shielded from rain, poorly) for 4 years with no
| apparent issue.
|
| Running one WLED device is much simpler than Zigbee. If you run
| more than one, they use UDP to sync over your Wi-Fi. If you
| have decent Wi-Fi, this will be much easier to set up than
| Zigbee; if we are talking a more industrial installation, it
| may not be a good fit.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| That definitely doesn't line up with what I've seen,
| failurewise. One of my ESP-32s has been running pretty much
| continuously for 3 years without any trouble. And in the past
| I've had no trouble running multiple for months at a time. The
| only failures I've had, across maybe 4 different manufacturers,
| happened when I did something dumb and unintentionally fried a
| board.
| hexo wrote:
| Thanks for a good news!
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I've had my ESP-01 outside in the winter cold for about a week
| now and one inside running a lava lamp. Remember that it runs
| off 3.3v, not 5.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I got this neopixel ring in a kit and as a non-hardware person it
| perplexes me how I'm supposed to use it. There's no mount points.
| Is the expectation that everyone can design and print parts?
|
| I can wire it up and program it but goodness knows how I actually
| affix it to my Pololu Romi.
| Marioheld wrote:
| I really love this project. Very active developrer/ community and
| many new features over the years. Also a very helpfull
| documentation.
| blockarchitech wrote:
| Time to blow up a nodemcu.
|
| Or two.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| The 0.14 beta just released which adds support for 2d matrixes.
| Great bit of software for easily controlling RGB strips.
| khimaros wrote:
| WLED can also be paired with OpenRGB to control many discrete
| devices over the network via E1.31. there is also an open source
| spatial napping plugin for OpenRGB which can be paired with an
| effects plugin supporting GLSL shaders and even GIF or video
| feeds. with this combination you can approach the capabilities of
| proprietary systems which cost easily 20x.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Since it's Christmas I feel I should post my old addressable LEDs
| project.
|
| https://youtu.be/Ic_MmhiT8qE
| birdman3131 wrote:
| So I had a stack of 12v pixel leds I picked up at an amazon
| returns bin store a while back for $10 for 10 sets of 50 leds.
| (Normally $120-150)
|
| This was 6 strings (Only 5 visible), a D1 esp 8266 running wled
| and a 12v power supply. Worked quite well.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/C8BbDVI
| brk wrote:
| Been using WLED for a few years now, it's really a great project.
| You can take the default build, flash it to an ESP device and get
| started directly, or integrate it easily into other automation
| systems and devices easily.
|
| The amount of both features and general professionalism in the
| interface is really incredible for an ESP-based project.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| I recently started looking for something really close to this,
| and found this project.... but what I really want is a PoE
| controller, because my LEDs need power anyway, so why not control
| them with the same cable? Unfortunately I haven't found a WLED
| compatible PoE controller.
|
| Anyone know of such a thing?
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| In case you weren't aware, a long LED strip with a high density
| of LEDs/m starts chewing up a lot of amps in a hurry depending
| on the effect. So much so that a lot of people will inject
| power into either end of the strip or even at multiple points
| along a length of interconnected strips. Otherwise the current
| draw causes a voltage drop that dims the LEDs and / or affects
| their color at the far end.
|
| Lots of WLED people (myself included) run with pretty beefy
| dedicated 5V supplies and use decently heavy gauge wire to
| connect to the strips.
|
| I'd recommend going the other way around. Connect to the ESP
| wirelessly and use a beefy dedicated supply to power both it
| and the LEDs.
| dekhn wrote:
| To give an idea of what's possible, I built a "4K" display
| with addressable LEDs. It was 64 strips of 64 pixels each.
| There was no need to do any power injection (uniform
| intensity across the whole board). I did the same as you:
| beefy dedicated 5V supplies. Even then, I was a bit worried
| because lighting up the entire display at full power pulled
| over a kilowatt. The person I gave the LEDs to then
| reconnecting them into 1 long strip and had to do power
| injection,.
| jes5199 wrote:
| can you recommend some specific power supplies? I've got a
| project that's been stalled out for long time because I don't
| know the right way to power it
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| For sure. You don't want to get some dicey supply that
| might burn your house down. I got a Mean Well LRS-200-5
| Switching Power Supply from Mouser (200W at 5V = 40A !!!).
| Mean Well makes quality supplies at reasonable prices and
| are a popular brand with the WLED crowd. Be sure to buy the
| 25cent piece of plastic that snaps over top of the AC
| terminals so you don't electrocute yourself. And get some
| inline fuses while you are at it to be on the safe side
| (unless you are getting something like a QuinLED board that
| builds that in). You'll also want some terminal to barrel
| connectors to.
|
| If you want some solid information, Quindor has you
| covered: https://quinled.info/2018/10/01/tools-and-
| equipment/
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Each WS2812 draws 60mA at full brightness. I have a 32*32
| array for 60A, but I only intend to run them at half
| brightness so I got a 40A supply.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Thank you, I was aware of this for longer strips. My first
| project I want to do is my kitchen cabinets, using shorter
| length led strips. I have 8 cat6 cables running to my kitchen
| cabinets now for this project, which should be plenty of
| power for the short runs of LED strips I will be using.
|
| A larger under the roof eaves display would be pretty cool
| though- will have to carefully look at the power for that if
| I ever do it.
| brk wrote:
| There are a relatively limited number of PoE ESP32 options. The
| Olimax unit seems to be workable with WS2812 style strips,
| possibly with a little bit of hacking.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| The most you can pull off a PoE switch is usually under 30W.
| Given you'll also lose efficiency stepping down the voltage,
| you might get say a single 5 meter strip powered at best off
| that PoE connection.
| sowbug wrote:
| I use PoE adapters that have micro USB power-out plugs. The
| thing being powered uses either Ethernet or WiFi, depending on
| what it is.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| I have a long term project of room lighting that reacts to music.
| I've gotten my feet wet working with the LED strips already, but
| hadn't heard of WLED - sounds extremely promising!
|
| Does somebody have an idea whether "real-time" music <-> light
| sync is feasible with WLED? I plan to have the audio processing
| happening outside the ESP32, but then I'm still concerned about
| the bandwidth requirements (driving ~300 NeoPixels), because
| ideally I don't want to just trigger "discrete" effects but
| retain full control. I just wonder whether WLED puts any
| significant overhead in there that I wouldn't run into with
| something hand-rolled...
| whatusername wrote:
| WLED has sound reactive plugins for built-in effects. Looks
| like there's some new stuff in .14 for this as well -- but I
| haven't followed closely.
|
| Or if you wanted to externalise it completely - it supports
| DDP/E1.31 -- you could generate the required effect externally
| - and just send the commands over the network. That should do
| 40 updates per second for 300 pixels. Ideally send it over
| ethernet - but you could probably pull it off over a good wifi
| network.
| dark-star wrote:
| Funny, just 2 days ago I ordered two RGB LED strips and a power
| supply to play around with during the holidays. I will definitely
| check this out, seems to save me some programming :-)
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _WLED Arduino WiFi LED Controller_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29970819 - Jan 2022 (20
| comments)
| RoddyRags wrote:
| Made a mega comet across our living room window with 2x esp32 and
| 2x 300 RGBW strips. One in a star 5 points 10 segments. The other
| strip as a 2 pronged tail on the comet (2 segments) which becomes
| more wiggly (turbulent) with distance.
|
| This project totally made my Christmas I could spend ages playing
| with the settings and mixing the right colours & speeds...
|
| Setting the 2 to sync with each other or do their own thing is
| sooo easy, even my mother in law enjoyed controlling it.
|
| Even a wee 24 rgb LED ring can have cool effects with this superb
| software
| jve wrote:
| Care to share video?
| ct0 wrote:
| WLED got me back into programming micro-controller and soldering.
| Tons of fun to be had at a relatively low cost of entry.
| mmmmax wrote:
| This is an amazing project and if you like WLED you'll also like
| Pixelblaze which is full-stack including a coding interface:
| https://electromage.com/pixelblaze
| vosper wrote:
| If I wanted to make a programmable LED grid in the least DIY
| way possible (I know nothing about electronics), would
| Pixelblaze be a good option?
| hackmiester wrote:
| Yes.
| bombledmonk wrote:
| I think the short answer to your question is yes.
|
| You still have to be able to hook up few wires and you'll
| need to be able to power your LEDs and understand your power
| needs there, but the live compilation in web based
| development platform (that's served by the device, no cloud)
| makes it really ideal for rapid prototyping and getting up
| and running quickly. No fussing with Arduino IDE or compile
| times. It's one of those things that "just works".
|
| If you want to see it in action:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMKltz8ji0k
| jonwest wrote:
| I wish there was a way to flash this to existing hardware. I've
| already got my LEDs running on ESP32s and I'd love to play with
| it, but I don't want to have to wait for/pay for international
| shipping for essentially the same hardware.
|
| Seems like a super cool project though! The effects look really
| cool and more "organic" than the WLED effects (to me at least),
| but I think I'll just need to live vicariously through
| YouTubers on this one haha
| agys wrote:
| Recently we built a LED sign for a bar named "Cinque a Zero" like
| a Campari based cocktail. We used a single Teensy 4.1 + a simple
| custom board that we designed to drive around 10K RGBW LEDs.
|
| Twitter thread with some background:
|
| https://twitter.com/andreasgysin/status/1472943758467645450?...
| poutine wrote:
| I've been toying a lot with this recently.
|
| A tip for anyone that's interested, you can order a compatible
| LED strip from Ali Express for much cheaper than Amazon, though
| you're going to wait several weeks. For example, do a search for
| WS2815 LED Strips and compare.
|
| BTW, if you're doing just single color check out COB LED strips,
| they're pretty cool with the uniform lighting over the strip. Get
| them in 24v to avoid voltage drop.
|
| LED Strips are lots of fun to play with and pretty easy to chop
| up, power and control.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Or look at the SK6812 LED strips. You'll get RGBW, which is
| perfect for cool looking task lighting
| eamonnsullivan wrote:
| Not sure why this is being promoted today (new release?), but I
| absolutely love this project. I use esp32 boards to power two
| strips in the house and another is currently powering my
| Christmas lights outside. The integration with Home Assistant is
| awesome. I just this week made the outside lights do a little
| dance (turn different colours and wave) when the doorbell rings.
| nevi-me wrote:
| I've been building a project from scratch. Creating closet
| lights using an ESP32 and W2812B strips. I'm mostly getting
| myself accustomed to Matter, as I'm more building something
| that I'll integrate with Google Home.
|
| It's great that this is on HN, I otherwise wouldn't have known
| about it. Looks like it can take care of the lighting control,
| and then I can worry about exposing a Rainmaker interface.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Probably because of the release of 0.14 beta1. Here is the
| announcement from their Discord posted yesterday by Aircookie
|
| ~~~
|
| After a way too long time, I am thrilled to finally share the
| new official beta, 0.14.0-b1, with you, just in time for
| Christmas! https://install.wled.me/
|
| Don't let yourself be fooled by the beta moniker, this version
| offers so much more than 0.13
|
| 0.14 is such a huge step forward in comparison to 0.13 that
| there are way too many epic new features and improvements to
| even start listing here. The two most major additions are
| native support for 2D matrix panels and effects as well as
| audio reactivity via usermod!
|
| A huge thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who
| contributed to the project in the last year, especially
| @blazoncek , @softhack007 , @ewowi and the WLED-SR fork team,
| who together have contributed, if I had to approximate, 90% of
| the new 0.14 code!
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Because same people let lights decorations for the last days
| before Xmas. And the Google search thing might have led them
| that path. Not that I'd know who said people are.
| codeslave13 wrote:
| Anyone recommend a "beginners starter kit" to start exploring
| wled stuff? Ie. A board, pa, and smallish or various strip
| options? Thanks
| poutine wrote:
| Check out the Athom box, available on Ali Express:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003776848515.html?spm=a2...
|
| It's an all in one with WLED on it. You just need a strip, some
| wire and a power supply.
| antsar wrote:
| Also available from their site with much faster shipping than
| AliExpress's Jan 20 (to the US, at least).
|
| https://www.athom.tech/
|
| Happily using this little guy to drive 100 fairy lights (from
| Adafruit), all from a USB plug.
|
| https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/wled-2812b-led-strip-
| controll...
| jareklupinski wrote:
| Personally a fan of Adafruit's Feather boards, their ESP32
| Feather can probably use the WLED code as-is, and there's
| expansions that include all the LEDs already soldered
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/2945
| spdustin wrote:
| Can confirm that Huzzah32 runs WLED just fine. Really
| convenient to have that LiPo battery connector and charging
| circuit built in, too.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Search "ESP RGB" on AliExpress. There's a $2 breakout board for
| the ESP-01 that makes it really easy to run LED strips. All you
| have to do it power it with 5V and the board converts it for
| the ESP.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| check out the boards made by Quindor. Very solid, very
| affordable. https://quinled.info
|
| His videos and blog posts are super helpful too!
| spdustin wrote:
| I used WLED to make an RGB LED effect-laden scarf for my wife,
| and then decided to add the same setup to a Santa hat. Now, as
| long as one ESP32 can access the other (either over the built-in
| access point or any shared WiFi network) the effects she chooses
| on her scarf sync to the brim of my Santa hat :)
|
| I love WLED so hard.
| patrick91 wrote:
| do you have pictures or a write up about this? sounds very
| neat!
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(page generated 2022-12-23 23:00 UTC)