Interfacing PixelBlaze to P943 NEON FLEX Strips

Troubleshooting
1

Hi Electroimage Community.
I’m trying connect the Pixelblaze (which is working flawlessly with standard LED strips) to a NEON FLEX Strip I bought here.

Oddly enough, I was able to work with this product back in 2018, with OctoWS811 hardware and teensy 3.1

I have been impressed by the UX of pixelblaze, and wanteds to hook the two.
No luck for now!

Wiring: I’m powering 12V into the strip. GND in common between LED strip and Pixelblaze. The other two wires were actually the same, to be hooked up to the DAT pin.

On paper the Pixelblaze should be compatible, but I’m running out of hope.

Any help appreciated.
Here is the Datasheet for the LED-

2

Hi there -

Seems like P943 are similar to the common NeoPixel protocol chips so they should be compatible.

How are you powering the PixelBlaze board with 5V? Got some pictures of your setup?

3

Hi Jeff.
Thanks for replying.

Good to know.

I’m powering the board with micro USB, the LED with a 12V Power Source.

Later yesterday I checked the voltage coming out from this power source, and discovered it was 15V (even if labelled as 12V…). I may have burned it.

I’ve been testing the LED strip with a K-1000C Controller and nothing happens (I used a 12V power supply - a correct one - in this case).

So. Now I will check if I have more strip and possibly come back to you here.

4

ok.
I’ve put my hands on another flex neon strip. This one is 5m and I have no reason to doubt it used to be working.

I tested on the K-1000 with no luck👀.
I re-tested everything (all the connections) and retested with Pixelblaze, both WS2812 and WS2812 Buffered, at all speeds…

Here is my setup.
Any ideas?
I’m running Pizelblaze v2.15

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5

By disassbleing the setup and touching the board I noticed a part very hot, and I discovered I probably burned an IC.
Since I have never poweered the board with my 12V source, how do you think this is possible / have happened?

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6

Ok.
I have started cheking the cable from the LED STRIP, and apparently the DATA wires are powering the board with 12V :man_facepalming:t4:.

7

Well, at least you’re making progress and getting to the bottom of things.

I’m not sure the product you linked as “spec sheet” is this one… it clearly shows 3 wires and claims a WS2811 IC.

Just wanted to point out this thread as well; similar in that it’s a 12V, dual-path NeoPixel, but spec sheet says to ground the backup input. I see from your picture it looks like DAT is conected to two of the 4 wires going to your LEDs.

8

Hi Jeff.
Thanks for your reply and your words.
Coming back to this.

I am putting the two wires together because they are connected (as I could understand from the tester). I also recall we used to have them connected.

I’ve read the other thread. Am I understanding well, I should put SIGNAL 2 on GND?
I’m kinda afraid of burn it (if they are not already lol)

This is how they are labelled.

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I’ve also found this youtube video that just uses one cable, apparently SIG 1.

I’ll try both and come back to you.

9

I have seen hybrid strips that combine addressable LEDs with an analog/PWM LED channel. These can be “common anode” which means the LEDs are powered, and the “input” just need to be grounded to turn on. The effect of that is that you might have 24v (minus some drop from the LEDs) on that blue wire.

If that is true, then it likely blew out the output driver on Pixelblaze and destroyed the digital input on the LEDs. Your strip looks like there are several LEDs per “pixel” and you can probably cut that segment out.

You might test your Pixelblaze with a known-supported LED strip to see if its still working.

10

Hi.

I opened the strip and rejoined their plug to the following three led unit.

I checked the Pixelblaze, that is working fine with a standard WS2812 strip.

@wizard @jeff which setup & wiring do you advice at this point?

11

I would power the strip separately and measure both of the input pins to the strip. If you detect a voltage (relative to GND), do not connect it to PB.

Set LED type to Buffered WS2812, leave data rate at default. Be sure to connect GND between both systems, and power PB with a separate 5v supply (like from USB as you have pictured above).

For now, I would leave them separate. If you run in to issues, try grounding the 2nd input.

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