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Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 3:50 am
by zfriedman
Hello,
I'm trying to figure out a way to drive a strip of WS2812 LEDs with QLC plus - ideally over ArtNet/E1.31. I tried various scripts and OSes on a raspberry Pi and even the Falcon Player program but I was never able to get even a single LED to light up. I know I am wiring the strip correctly but I can't seem to get any data to them. I have been researching this a lot and I can't seem to come up with any working ideas. The eventual end goal is to be able to use them as holiday lights that I can program in QLC+ and drive wirelessly. Is it this even possible without spending hundreds on an ArtNet pixel controller? any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. I'm open to ideas involving code but I am a bit of a code novice.
Thanks in advance!
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:24 am
by mcallegari
Please search the forum before posting
https://www.qlcplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10036
https://www.qlcplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10248
If you succeed in controlling them reliably, please post your results and how you did it
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:16 pm
by zfriedman
Thank you for this information
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:56 am
by zfriedman
I had tremendous success using this article from SparkFun:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/us ... pixels/all
the code that they provide works really well and the the whole project can be done for less than $50 USD (assuming you already own a soldering iron/solder/basic electronics tools and parts). I created a feather add-on board using the Adafruit FeatherWing Proto that passes the data output from one of the digital pins on the SparkFun ESP32 Thing Plus board to an sn74ahct125n quad level shifter for fast conversion of 3.3V logic up to 5V logic and drove the entire string with Artnet over Wifi. The feather platform also has an ethernet wing for more stability but I did not implement this due to time constraints. I have noticed that sometimes the animations will appear to run at lower frame rates but this could be due to wifi signal instability and the issue is relatively rare and corrects itself after a few moments. I sealed everything up inside weather tight enclosure with PG7 glands powered it all from a 5V power supply. it was a really fun build that could also scale up to as many pixels as you have power for. The ESP32 Thing Plus even has a compatible DMX shield from SparkFun.
https://ibb.co/Pc8tdcJ
https://ibb.co/0qDGY0T
https://ibb.co/gRZKH37
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 10:53 pm
by keukenrol
I have about 900 LED's at max driven by QLC over E1.31 (with poor performance, however, jinx is better in this type of stuff).
However, my mobile lighting setup is about 500 LED's, all WS2812B. They are driven by ESP32's running WLED. I think it is one of the most cheap options
You should look up WLED, its amazing.
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:54 pm
by sandinak
I am driving >10k LEDs using ArtNET -> Raspi running olad -> fadecandy .. works quite well .. actually expanding this year.
Re: Driving WS2812 Strips with QLC+
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:09 am
by kremor
sandinak wrote: ↑Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:54 pm
I am driving >10k LEDs using ArtNET -> Raspi running olad -> fadecandy .. works quite well .. actually expanding this year.
Are you planning to make a post about this project at your blog ?