Help with LEDs

[MikePerreman]

Hello everyone,
i am having a problem with getting leds lighting up, unless i wire them to a motor controller or the PCM, yet someone wired on in to the DIO. what im wondering is if that works, and if it does how do you go about programming it?
thanks everyone,
-Mike

[VeqIR]

Hi Mike,
Can you give us a little more info about these LEDs? Are they LED strips or lights on a component?
Are they 12V or 5V LEDs?
Are they individually addressable, RGB or solid color?
How many LEDs are you trying to drive with the DIO?

My offhand guess is that you're exceeding the current supplying capability of the DIO pin unless you're only driving a few LEDs

[GeeTwo]

As you have made them work through a motor controller and PCM, I'm presuming this is a 12V LED strip. The DIO only puts out 5V, and it doesn't have enough current to drive very much. You can use a spike relay or the PCM (the LEDs are considered a CUSTOM CIRCUIT), though if you go the PCM route, you want to watch the current; the total PCM current supplied to all of the solenoid pins must stay under 500mA, or about 6W of power.

Since we weren't using any of the relay ports for actuators this year, we used spikes to control our LEDs. If that's not an option, you can get A 5V relay module at a number of sites online. This will let you power them from a WAGO connector and switch them using the DIO port.