Greetings fellow lemmings! I have a problem and i was hoping your smart brains could help me solve it. I want to use an arduino and some addressable LED strips as an „ambilight“ upgrade for my pc. I soldered everything according to some instructions on the webz. I also provide enough electricity for the strips via a 12v charger. When I power them on (no matter if the arduino is turned on or not), they just blink randomly. Only a few led on the 4 strips I connected (to make corners for my monitor). The data input from pin 5 on my arduino is completely ignored when it is turned on. So I think it’s a wiring problem. But I don’t see the issue. On the picture you see the input connections i soldered. The strips are just connected together by wires. Ground to ground, data to data, power to power. Is my dumb smooth brain keeping me from my plans, or is there something broken? I only have replacement led strips, but I don’t know why the arduino or the power supply should be broken

update for everyone who cares: A friend of mine and me were troubleshooting (he has a multimeter and another arduino), and we came to the conclusion that I need an even stronger power supply. The leds on the new strips are much more powerhungry than the old ones. So I’ll try to get a more reasonable power supply (we did the math and I need one with 5V and 20 Amps, the current one is 12V with 1.4 Amps) and I will post another update.

Thank you so much for your help, everyone!

next update: With a lab power supply we measured, that the strips need much less power than it says in the description of the LED strip. It works flawlessly with a 5v and 4a power supply. My connections were right, but not the power delivery.

Thank you again everybody! I learned quite a lot 😊

  • SirBucksworthOP
    2•29 days ago

    Thank you for your answer!

    Have you verified that the power supply wiring is correct? Red = + Black = -. I have had supplies where the red and black were reversed during manufacture, I have also had led strips where the labeling was reversed.

    I have not, that’s a good point! I‘ll see if I can find a way to Check that.

    Is the arduino getting power in this situation? It looks like it is only connected to data and ground. I have no experience with arduinos, but I would think you would have 3 wires connecting to it. +, -, and data.

    I disconnected the cables when making the picture, so you can see the wiring I soldered. I connected +5v with the red wire of the power supply, data with pad5 on my arduino and ground to the black wire of the supply and ground on the arduino.

    You say 12v for the lights, but input on the strips says +5v

    The supply was already in work as an ambulatory supply before, i just got new LED strips with even more LEDs (got a new, bigger screen). In the online Tutorials they also use 12v supplies. Unfortunately I have no weaker ones to try out