PixelBlaze v3 Issues

Troubleshooting
1

I just got a v3 and seem to have problems lighting a W2812 ring. The LED’s won’t light most of the time and when they do they don’t cycle as they should (they only stay lit solid in a seemingly random pattern and colors).

I’m using the USB to power the board, and WIFI works correctly. I’m not sure what the next steps are here for trouble shooting this issue.

Update: I can’t get any LED’s to light now :frowning:

2

Hi, and welcome! Here are some things to try:

  • Check your connections, especially the ground. Be very sure that the ground wire on the LEDs is solidly connected to the pixelblaze, even (especially) if you’re using a separate power supply to power the ring.
  • Check your settings (in the settings tab on the Pixelblaze’s Web UI). Make sure LED type is set to WS2812/SK6812/Neopixel, and Pixels is set to the number of pixels in your ring.
  • If you’re powering the whole thing via USB, try turning the max brightness (in Settings) down to 50% or less and see if it helps.
    USB power supplies generally don’t provide much current, and you might just be running out of power. To test this, you can also cut the number of pixels in settings down to 10 or so and see if it works.
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3

Hello,

I appreciate the quick response. I figured out the problem is with the array; the soldering has snapped off. I guess it’s time to invest in a different (higher quality) array.

Should I hook up the ring array connection to the PixelBlaze from the outside ring or inside ring connection? Maybe it doesn’t matter, although when I hook it up from the inside connection 28 LED’s on the last ring don’t illuminate (that’s is the ring where the solder snapped off though).

Thank you!

Update: I figured out why the last 28 LED’s wouldn’t light; it was set to 100 pixels and my array is 128… :slight_smile:

4

Glad you got it working!

On the connectors: You’ve got this solved, but I figured I’d add a little information.

LEDs are wired directionally. On strips, the data flow direction is usually marked with arrows. On matrices and rings, the markings might be less obvious.

In any case, there are usually two connectors - “data in” and “data out”. The Pixelblaze should be hooked to the “data in” connector. “Data out” is used when hooking multiple strips/rings/whatever together.

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5

That makes total sense, thanks very much! :slight_smile:

Unfortunately my LED ring array broke (it dropped only about 1 ft. while I was working on it and I can’t seem to get it to work anymore). I have no idea how to troubleshoot the problem; the array wasn’t very robust to begin with and seemed cheaply made. I plan on getting another one soon, so if you have recommendations on a large one I’m all ears. I did purchase a 256 LED square matrix to hold me over until I decide which ring array to buy next. I really prefer the ring effects over the square matrix for whatever reason.

I’m still learning the in’s and out’s of how these LED’s work, and I’ll probably have some more questions of course. I noticed on your GitHub it says you are from Tucson — small world, I’m in Tucson also!

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We’ll be doing matrix-y stuff.in the Academy forum section starting soon, and one topic will be using polar coordinates, which will allow you to using both Rings and Matrixes pretty equally.

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Hey, glad to hear from another Tucsonan! @Scruffynerf and @jeff are probably more up on which rings are best than I am. They’ve come up with some really interesting stuff from aliexpress, which I haven’t dared try yet.

I stick mostly to Amazon - mostly BTF-Lighting and Alitove, and the things that @Wizard sells on Tindie. Got to say though, for circular layouts, I think these are super attractive.

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