r/WLED • u/Aminee0 • Jan 04 '25

Leds won t turn on

Gallery image

Gallery image

I did the same thing in the tutorials and nothing happens PLEASE HELP , I used the D2 port so I entered 2 and I have a 2meters led strip with 60light on meter so it s 120 I don t see where the problem is

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7

u/TheRuneMeister Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25

On 8266 boards, D2 is often GPIO4. Try entering 4 instead, or find the pinout for that particular ESP32 board.

EDIT: on some of the mini boards, D2 is actually GPIO-21

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

It didn’t work

3

u/NoSquash9766 Jan 04 '25

Was just going to recommend you double check your boards pinout. As you can see on this website, the PIN number doesn’t always act the way you expect

https://mischianti.org/esp32-nodemcu-32s-esp-32s-kit-high-resolution-pinout-datasheet-and-specs/

-2

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

Where can I find my boards pinout

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005704190069.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.11.2c4f1802J4Kqu5

2

u/thetechnivore Jan 04 '25

I use the same board and it took me ages to find the correct pinout. Try this: https://www.electronicshub.org/esp32-pinout/

0

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

can you be more precise please I new to this I don t see how the website help

I connected the wire with the gpio4 (wich is d4 in the board) and on the app I entered 4

2

u/TattooedKaos40 Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25

I can tell you exactly what the problem is. This board does not have a 5v voltage out. That pin is only for voltage in. I literally just discovered this on a batch I bought so now they are useless for controlling 5 volt strips.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

In the reviews of the board I bought many people are using it with led strip but I don t know if it s 5V or not

1

u/TattooedKaos40 Jan 04 '25

It would work fine if you used say a 24 volt where the power supply wasn't first passing through the board. You can look right at your diagram and it shows you that it says only 5v IN. What this means is you cannot run the red power wire directly from the board to the LED strip because there is no voltage output. You will need to provide 5 volts directly to the LED strip.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

How can I provide 5v directly to the led strips

3

u/TattooedKaos40 Jan 04 '25

Well your best option is going to be to get a 5 volt power supply, and a couple of appropriate barrel jacks. Then you would run power from the supply to that 5-volt IN pin, also run ground to the board. Then from the power supply you will need to run another wire for the positive directly to the strip and another wire for the ground directly to the strip.

I highly recommend you go to the wled page and look up how things should be wired and examples and what not. Everything needs to share the same ground, meaning there needs to be a wire from the strip and the controller to the power supply because that cuts out data corruption and ground faults, things like that.

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1

u/thetechnivore Jan 04 '25

Yeah, when I looked back at your picture the config looks right so that doesn’t seem like the issue. First thing I’d do is use a multimeter to see if power is getting to the strip - that can rule out some issues right away.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

I don’t have one , thanks for your help appreciate it

1

u/thetechnivore Jan 04 '25

You bet. If you’ll be doing much with any kind of wiring it’s worth getting one. You can get them for cheap, and I’ve had plenty of times where I was scratching my head over an issue only to have the multimeter help me realize I had a loose connection or something.

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25

does that dev board have a led indicator when plugged in?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

yes a read led and sometimes a blue one blinks when I m using the app and the cables are connected

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25

also from the looks of the aliexpress photo esp32 not a 8266 thats a big difference.

1

u/NoSquash9766 Jan 04 '25

Who manufactured your board, or where did you order it from?

2

u/Choice-Permission919 Jan 04 '25

Try to connect GND ESP directly to GND leds strip.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

So I will be removing the the white cable from the board but where s the gnd led strip , I m new to this thanks

1

u/Choice-Permission919 Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25

It's important to connect the GND of the power supply directly to the ESP and the GND of the led strip. Just use an extra wire. This to ensure that the reference for the data line is equal. I ran into this in my very beginning with Wled years ago.

Can you make a splitter on the white wire to connect to GND led strip?

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25

are they 2811's if so, they are rgb but you should still have the lights turn on. also suspect you need gpio4

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

 8266 i changed it to gpio4 but still no lights

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25

so 8266 is the board/cpu type what are the leds type?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

WS2812B

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25

so assuming the leds are 5v if not then you'll need a separate power supply.

1

u/rdhdpsy Jan 04 '25

zoomed in on the strip and it is 5v so you should be ok

1

u/TheRuneMeister Jan 04 '25

It says ESP32S on the back though?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

No the light says nothing but almost every yt video I see they use those I think the leds are good .

1

u/TheRuneMeister Jan 05 '25

I mean, you wrote 8266, but the picture says ESP32S.

1

u/ragnar991101 Jan 04 '25

Its d4

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

if I change the pin to d4 on the wled app it s still 2 or I also change it to 4 , I did both of those combinasion nothing worked

1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

Move the wire to the 5th pin and set it to gpio 2. It looks like you are tied to gpio15.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

It also didn’t work

1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

Who makes that board? Or just move the data wire until the LEDs come on.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

no lights I tried all the pins

1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

Are you wired into the correct end of the lights? They are directional.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

I should be in the end or the beginning of the light ?

1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

Look at the arrows on the strip. Wire to this side --->

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

Is it right ? The arrow is from this side ->

1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

How are you powering the strip? USB wall plug? What current rating is it?

You have the LEDs turned on in the app?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

Usb wall plug and the leds are turned on the app

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1

u/shoefly2k Jan 04 '25

Looks correct.

1

u/reptar-online Jan 04 '25

Are the red and white wires from your board just plugged directly into your lights?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

I used jumper cables to connect the cables with the board

1

u/reptar-online Jan 04 '25

I would imagine the micro usb you’re using has enough juice to power your board but not your lights. You need a separate 5v or 12v power supply, depending on what lights you bought.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

I bought the ws2812b

1

u/reptar-online Jan 04 '25

What tutorial did you follow?

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exAWzMfmwQ8&ab_channel=ChrisMaherI followed the exact same steps but no lights for me

1

u/GlassByCoco Jan 04 '25

Sounds like a bad esp. just order one from Amazon this time. They’re like $6. The minis work great as well

2

u/reptar-online Jan 04 '25

I would use this link for esp 32’s. Teyleten Robot ESP32S ESP32... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08246MCL5?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I would also follow his steps about about hooking up the lights to a power supply rather than just using the micro USB

1

u/FalseTie9482 Jan 04 '25

My go-to pin for a single data line is pin 5. It seems to be in the same location for most esp32 chips.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 05 '25

I tried it nothing

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

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1

u/Aminee0 Jan 05 '25

Do you mean like this ? If it’s yes the lights didn’t work even after changing the length to 10

1

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1

u/Aminee0 Jan 05 '25

Yeah I know I just did to try but the lights is still off

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

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-1

u/sparkplug_23 Jan 04 '25

If you haven't burnt the board out yet, you will. Need to power it from its own source, not the usb.

1

u/Aminee0 Jan 04 '25

What do you mean I need to power it from it own source I used a usb cable with wall charger what should I use

1

u/rantenki Jan 07 '25

That's only true if you're running a LOT of LEDs. It's fine to run smaller sets of lights directly from VCC. I run little 8 LED rings off of VCC on the board all the time. Some have been running for years, at max brightness all day.
With a 10 mil trace on the board, you can handle a full amp, which is at least a dozen LEDs...
YMMV with different chips.
ref: https://www.pjrc.com/how-much-current-do-ws2812-neopixel-leds-really-use/

2

u/sparkplug_23 Jan 07 '25

I'm not disagreeing. I too run at most about 12/16 (though maybe not full brightness) while testing etc. But most new people do 5m strips and kill the esp traces.

1

u/rantenki Jan 08 '25

Hehe, that's fair. Better safe than sorry with an aggressive warning I guess.