#wled

BIG BIG rainbows on "Sparkle motion" WLED driver board 🌈💡

We got our WLED-friend PCBs

https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/12/02/leftovers-layout-wled-board-revision-a-completed/

and are testing it with various LED grids. First, we tried out a 16x16 NeoPixel grid that runs on 5V. Since that worked well, we're now onto a much bigger 60 x 60 grid - that's 3,600 LEDs! These are some NeoPixel pebble

netting samples we're also testing at the same time; each one has 20 x 60 pixels and uses 12V power, so it's a good test of the DC pass-through for higher voltages. Since WLED has a limit of 2000 pixels per output, this demo uses the three output ports that are then 'merged' together in memory to make a single large grid. We have more to test soon: the onboard IR receiver, USB PD, I2S microphone, extra I/O pins, and I2C, so watch for those videos as they come together. Coming soon -

I’ve got a new tutorial up at Adafruit.com: make a jellyfish umbrella with lots of animated lights and WLED. This is a pretty easy build, with spectacular results. The lights are easy to control with WLED, a free and open-source web app that allows you to control your lights over Wifi with your phone. Full tutorial link is here:…

Festival of Lights… A 'USB Stick' Sparkle Motion WLED driver ✨💡🔌🌟

To wrap up this year, we're doing 8 days (maybe!) of light-filled designs. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Next, we were going through some of our NeoPixel samples today and found some "LED Christmas light kit" with star LEDs, its basically these stars

with a little USB plug that has IR, a crummy mic, a tactile switch to cycle modes manually, and a tiny microcontroller that turns the LED selections to different patterns - kinda like this:

The idea is cute - but the implementation could be improved with a lil sparkle motion

! we made a PCB that would fit into the same plastic enclosure but with an ESP32 instead. it's got an IR receiver, ICS-43434 I2S digital microphone

https://www.digikey.com/short/mmv3tthz

mini Sparkle Motion prototype - a tiny, fully-featured WLED board ✨🔌📏💡🌈

We're doing a lot of serious testing with our WLED mega-board, code-name Sparkle Motion .

While doing some holiday lighting projects, we also wanted something slim enough to slip into any design. It still uses an ESP32 for the best support, with USB-serial programming, 5A fuse, 5V level shifting + 100 ohm series resistors for pixel drivers, user/reset buttons, a user LED and onboard neopixel, JST SH analog/digital connector, QT I2C connector, 4 GPIO plus power/ground breakouts, and USB type C power/data input.

However, this version is made simpler and less expensive by dropping the DC jack and USB PD support: it's only for 5V strips if you want to power them directly (you could still drive 12V or 24V pixels, but you'll need separate power for them). Instead of a full set of terminal blocks for 3 signals, we only have two outputs, and they have to share the power and ground pins. It could also be used for a single two-pin dotstar LED setup. We kept the built-in I2S mic but dropped the on-board IR sensor - if you want an IR sensor, you'll be able to plug it into the JST SH port with a simple cable or solder it into the breakout pads.

Leftovers & layout - WLED board revision A completed!

Sunday night, Babyada went to bed early, so we finished the capture and layout of our WLED board. Thanks to all the suggestions, we were able to implement quite a few!

For power, use USB C PD with switch-select or DC up to 24V; they are diode-OR'd together with PMEG3050

https://www.digikey.com/short/zv22b0pq

into a massive 5A 24V fuse

https://www.digikey.com/short/43qwwtwm

For the 5V regulator, we picked NCP718ASN500T1G

https://www.digikey.com/short/bb9ncc0n

- it's linear, but we don't need a lot of current at 5V. For 3.3V, we went with our trusty TPS54202

https://www.digikey.com/short/c1wnnf94

Upon request, we kept the ICS-43434 I2S microphone

https://www.digikey.com/short/28zwrrhz

and added an IR 38KHz receiver. For external connectivity, there's an ADC/DAC/GPIO #27 breakout on a JST SH 3-pin and I2C on a StemmaQT/Qwiic 4-pin.

We also added a 2x3 breakout header with 3V, GND, and 3 more GPIO so you could connect an external microphone, IR receiver, buttons, or rotary encoder. The terminal blocks have three 5V level-shifted outputs with 100 ohm in-line resistors and power/ground pairs for each. If you need just one more LED strand, the fourth 5V signal is on the 2x3 block.

Rounding out the design are four mounting holes, a reset button, GPIO #0 user button, GPIO LED, and an individual NeoPixel, which could be useful for testing. It's still pretty small, 2" x 1.3". With an ESP32-Mini module, we can pick a PCB or wFL antenna port, and it's an easy swap to make it use an ESP32-Pico, which has 2MB PSRAM.

Trying to design a great WLED board 🌈🦄🦃

While waiting for the turkey to finish brining, we're designing a board for using WLED - and we want to make like the bestest board in the whole world.

Our resident mermaid, firepixie

, makes a lot of projects with WLED, and she loves it! So, how can we make something that will be powerful but not too bulky? Here are some things we're thinking about as the design starts to congeal like cranberry sauce:

Power via USB Type C PD with a slide switch that selects between 5, 12, and 20V (24V pixels can usually run fine at 20V) OR via a 2.1mm DC jack. With ideal diodes, it's good for up to 5A from either.

ESP32-Mini module with built-in or optional wFL antenna port. The classic '32 has broad support, even if we'd prefer the 'S2 or 'S3.

There are three output signal terminal block sets, with power and ground for each. They'll be level-shifted to 5V.

Built in I2S microphone (we're still pondering this one).

Stemma QT I2C port to connect external sensors/OLEDs/etc.; separate analog/digital input JST port.

1.3"x1.75" / 33mm x 45mm size with mounting holes.