Hey all, I’m a 4 year member of Team 1764 and was wanting to light up our robot with two strips of Adafruit’s 60 LED/m Neopixels! I have used them for a few years and understand the basics of wiring and programming them.
I planned to power each strip from a respective 5V 2A port on the Voltage Regulation Module and have the data pin come from an Arduino Uno powered by a Roborio USB port. When it was all wired and programmed, I turned on the robot only for the lights to glitch out and blink in faded red and green.
After the failure, I wired each strip into the Arduino to make sure they worked properly and that it was not an issue with soldering, coding or the lights themselves. I plan to purchase converters that convert 12V to 5V 3A to ensure that power is not an issue.
After searching multiple forums for an answer, there could be many potential solutions to the issue. If anybody has experienced this or can provide advice on how to achieve the bling that we are looking for, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
How was the arduino being powered? If the ground of the arduino and the ground from the power supply to the LEDs are not common, then you can run into issues with the data line from the arduino not being interpreted correctly by the strips.
The Arduino was being powered by a Roborio USB port. I can also try powering the arduino from the VRM with the 12V port. To achieve common ground would I only need to run a cable between the ground of the Arduino and the ground of the strips?
I have used them on an doff a robot. What was mentioned above is important and be sure to not mix up your polarity. Sounds simple but we had it happen and it was one of those moments. They actually survived the reverse polarity for a moment but it destroyed the chip on each LED and then they never worked right from there. Trashed them and bought new.