That's terrible, sorry that you are having so much trouble. To recap: -) You can install WLED and get WiFi setup. -) you setup Ethernet by going to "Config" and then to "WiFi Setup". At the bottom of this page select the Ethernet type (WT32-ETH01 ) Make sure your WiFi settings are NOT setup so it doesn't take priority over your Ethernet connections. If you plug in your Ethernet cable to your network, does the Ethernet jack light on the board turn on? If you don't see the light, it may not be connected. If the light is on, Do you have access to your Ethernet network router? You should be able to see it on a list of connected devices. It would be good to setup a static (reserved) IP address if you can. Try to access it in your computer browser by typing in the IP address

That's true. I'm glad these controllers worked out for you. My entire show of 9,560 pixels runs on seven WT32-ETH01 controllers. Here's a link to the pinout diagram of the WT32-ETH01. m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71XKk71FhAL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg I usually use these 4 output pins in this order: IO2 IO4 IO12 IO14 I did fabricate a PCB which would have made the wiring a lot simpler, but the traces were too close and it interfered with each other. I might go back and attempt to fix it

Good info on locating your ip, thanks!

I found similar behavior as well. I hook the ground to ground on both sides and the HV side directly to the 5v power supply. I leave the LV side unconnected. I used to pin it to the 3v3 pin, but had sketchy results I also have that NE555 delay timer. The system waits about 5 - 8 seconds before sending power to the 5v pin on the board. After I put out this video a few years ago, the guys on the WLED page put out a lot of good recommendations for level shifters and their setup (kno.wled.ge/basics/compatible-hardware/#levelshifters). I think I'll give their recommendations a go next year.

Congrats on being able to set up your DigiQuads and props. *_xLights, FPP, and WLED Video_* Setting up FPP, xLights and WLED does take some time and I have a video I put together setting it up from scratch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpyqdKJvfM5ro80 In the video, I'm using WT32-ETH01 controllers, but it's essentially the same. When it comes time to setup xLights with your controller, simply choose DigiQuad instead of Generic ESP32. Couple of comments: *_Starting Universe_* -) Setting Starting Universe # - One critical thing I don't point out in video is that even using DDP, you need to specify a Universe in your WLED setup. I think upload will set it for you, but if it doesn't, you can check your controller in xLights for starting Universe and then check WLED > Sync Preferences > E1.31 section matching the unverse number. *_Avoid WiFi_* -) WiFi is sketchy - Coordinating music to your wireless controllers is sketchy at best. You will probably find that running a show with your wireless DigIQuad/WLED devices may be rough. You can definitely try with just WiFi, but if you have problems, you may need to change something. There are a couple ways around this with DigiQuads by: a) Purchasing the Ethernet hat and hooking up physically b) Purchasing the AE+ hat and flashing ESPPixelStick software instead of WLED (most difficult option)

@@BytesOfPi Thank you for the prompt reply and the link to your video, this is going to be my starting point. Then I will install xLights on my computer and then try to sync with my Quads. My main DigQuad is wired but the 2 on my yard are wireless and yes I read that WIFI can't be sketchy. I will give it a try and go from there. Like you said, I might have to buy the eth adapter and find a way to wire them. Thanks again for the great tutorials, greatly appreciated from DIY people like me! Dom.

@idscomm not a problem. Good luck with your show. Two final suggestions I saw on a Reddit post yesterday about optimizing xLights for WiFi. Try 20 FPS instead of 40 to start and Not sure if it translates to FPP, but in xLights Controller tab, for each controller there is an option to Suppress Duplicate Frames

@@davidforbes9299 Sounds ambitious. I don't know how many LEDs per controller your planning on supporting and not a pro on PoE. The ESP32 breakout boards that support PoE out of the box are a little more expensive. I wouldn't expect good coverage beyond one or two hundred pixels if you're powering the board and lights via PoE. Assuming you already have a router that supports it, I would suggest not going all out. Try one with a strip of lights and see if the voltage drop is acceptable. If you're using it for house lighting and you are using RGBW, they are even more power hungry. Definitely try white since it will suck up the most power

@@WKfpv The effect is called shockwave. I group all models together and place the effect on the group. You may need to change the radius.

@@WKfpv On the Tools menu bar, there should be an option called FPP Connect. Here's a link with more info manual.xlights.org/xlights/chapters/chapter-five-menus/tools/fpp-connect

@@mebunkeryou8718 Hey, good question. I'm betting you're referring to the COB types of strip pixels. While I've not used these types of strips before, I believe you are correct. There's only one chip for every 6 so only one E1.31 packet for each group. Bottom line, I think that you are correct. A single xlights pixel would map to 6 six on your string. There may be a way to map one node to every 6 in a model, but I've not done that yet. I think there is a way to do pixel mapping. The manual may have more. manual.xlights.org/xlights/chapters/chapter-four-tabs/models

@@no1unorightnow Fair point, and I have used precompiled WLED in the past. Wasn't looking at bashing those that do. I actually do look at the WLED code and I make modifications to items like text scrolling and optimize builds for space I am a little naive thinking that I'm safe compiling it on my own. A nation-state could just as easily modify the libraries I'm downloading to compile as easy as tampering with the precompiled binary

@BytesOfPi Understood, thanks for the clarification!

@@KS_Husker Thanks for the feedback. Other people have made similar comments. I artificially speed up the video and edit dead space out because of my own personal preferences, but I'm changing it going forward. In fact my last video I kept at normal speed kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWfZhqWCacd1ac0 So many of the instructional videos I watch go too slow for me and I intentionally speed up the video and fast forward/ pause/replay when I get to the part I care about. It means a lot less effort on my part to not speed it up so I'm totally on board with that 😁

That's awesome! Glad you and your family enjoy and are thinking about getting into the hobby. There is a strong Australian community at: auschristmaslighting.com/ As far as pixel vendors, that's a tough one. When I started back in 2018, Ray Wu at AliExpress was great and I bought a lot of 5v bullets. However when I bought in 2020, all of the batches had defects and they flickered really bad when voltage dropped. If you check the pixel report (www.pixel.report/report-data) Ray's pixels are the worst offenders. I now get pixels from a vendor here in the states called Wally's Lights. They are more expensive, but I've not had a single bad pixel with them. Best thing is to wait until after Christmas around March and vendors will offer bulk deals I have both 5 and 12v pixels in my show. 12v has advantages when you need less power injection points, but 5v pixels have less chance of catching fire and you can use a 5v phone charger to run both the controller and pixels I think the best advice comes from an actual electrical engineer. Give Bill Porter's VCS zoom talk a view. He's an electrical engineer and explains things like power injection, wire gauges and fusing. If you're starting new, that's the best place to start kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4OWgpWwn9WNr5o

Thankyou very much for time and effort helping me out, time too do more research, cheers can't wait see new video's. Cheers Luke

Good question. That's a good one sentence summary of FPP, but it's very versatile. xLights is your creation tool. This creates sequences and synchronizes it with music. WLED is the software controller that controls a group of pixels. They can operate independently, but in a light show sequence created by xLights, they are dumb slaves and just receive instructions from a master program. FPP functions as your master controller. You store the music and sequences on it. When running a sequence, you can hook it to a sound system or radio transmitter while it sends DDP packets to each of your slave controllers. You can create playlists, schedules when playlists turn on and off and a host of other things. You could definitely run sequences and play music directly from xLights or xScheduler bundled with xLights from your laptop, but for $40, I've found that running it from a raspberry Pi FPP player is handy. It's web enabled so I can run my show from my phone. I'm also a big fan of keeping things cheap and build up. Coordinating all of your WLED controllers to music is a thrill. The one thing I would caution is WLED controllers is Wi-Fi. When I was controlling just one with xLights, it was totally fine. However when I added a second controller, the show lagged way behind the music as a lot of packets collided and dropped. Ethernet WLED controllers work much better when you get bigger.

@@BytesOfPi good one. I have a Pi 3 on stock, so new toy to play with. DrZzs also got some video about it. Thanks for the great answer.

@@mrbigbluff21 roofline is the worst. If there is any way to shorten the distance between your controller and first light that would help. Some people put the controller in a water proof box near the house. I'm not an electrical engineer, but if you have your data line running parallel to your electric lines, that may be a culprit. If you're like me and run an 18/3 with power ground and data, that may also be adding. One way to test if the electric line is interfering is to shut that circuit off on your your home fuse box while your lights are running. If there is no current running and the lights aren't flickering then you found it

Hot stuff, you're already way farther than I thought. You'll want to connect your FPP with your controller using DDP. I've got a video on connecting FPP and your boards together in xLights.... Only major change you would need is to specify DigiOcta for your board instead of Generic ESP32. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpyqdKJvfM5ro80 The one thing I don't mention in the video is , If you choose to add more controllers, keep track of your starting universe ID... Your default starting universe in wled is 1. You need to increment this by the number of universes your first controllers have.

@@BytesOfPi Thanks. I will be adding more controllers. Decided which controller to go with now. Starting to watch your video now. Thanks. Do you have an email where I can contact you directly?

​@@knowyourjoe8826 Hey Joe, good luck on your project. I'm super paranoid about email but I'm at reddit u/BytesOfPi .

@@BytesOfPi Thanks. Not sure how reddit works as I am kinda a dinosaur but will try to figure it out.

@@knowyourjoe8826 I'm the same way. I started Reddit 2 years ago. There are 3 great communities on there where people can post their questions or comments along with photos/video of the issue and the community helps if they can. r/WLED r/xLights and r/led You can view comments without logging in, but to post to the thread or send a message, it needs an account. I've been contributing where I can but I've not been able to contribute as much and making fewer videos because I've been busy this past year.

That's awesome! Good luck on your project. If this is your first time, It's going to be challenging to set up all the pieces and build your sequences in time. However, once you have the basic infrastructure, it's easier to build on. If you're new to soldering and micro controllers, there are some prepackaged controllers like DigiQuad that save you some of the hard parts... Just make sure to get it with the Ethernet option.

That's a great comment. When you use the visualize in xLights, you can't specify GPIO ports. They give you a generic: Port 0, Port 1, etc.... That simply refers to the first, second, third, etc port you set up in WLED's LED setup. For example, I just set up a new box for arches. In WLED LED Preferences, I set up 2 ports, the first w/ GPIO2 and the second with GPIO12. In xLights, I mapped the first 4 arches to "Port 0" and the second to "Port 1". Essentially, WLED understands Port 0 was first port I set (GPIO2) and Port 1 was second port (GPIO12)

So you set up the GPIO manually in WLED, and xLights does not over write that data. I will be doing some testing this week with my new box, to see its performance.

​​@@davidbergmann987 Correct. If I remember, it will update the port with the right number of pixels. I'll need to check again, but for example say: I set up GPIO2 with 100 pixels and GPIO12 with 200 in WLED. In xLights I set up Port 0 with models that contain 300 pixels and Port 1 with models that contain 400. If I synchronize, xLights will make API calls to that WLED instance that will set GPIO2 to 300 pixels and GPIO12 to 400

Oh, one last thing to mention that I don't point out in the video. In the xLights controller page, each controller has a starting universe. High level, every 512 channels (or 170 pixels) is a new universe. Make sure these starting universes don't overlap between controllers. In the WLED sync settings, there is a "Starting universe" section. This number MUST match the starting universe ID in xLights... Synchronize should do that but it is always good to check

I started using DDP a few years ago. No more universes. Looks to me as if WLED now supports DDP. With xlights pushing the configuration DDP, is much easier. I will have to test that too.

Rule of thumb for 5v is to power inject every 100 pixels. I would recommend Bill Porter 's video on power injection. He's an electrical engineer and I found his tips to be the best. kzbin.infoeR3QbzjpZy8?si=ZncMLXXewzEBpIHZ I also have six 192 pixel 5 volt mini trees and I power inject at the bottom of every other strand. This may or may not help with your 640 pixel tree kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpu4gYufqreLhdEsi=1Lss9bNgBJI5uJAi

You've caught a mistake that I made in the video... While I opened the power box and showed the 5v supply, what I didn't point out was the tower of 3 12v supplies behind. You can make out the bottom power supply next to the strip at about 8:05 . It took forever to make the matrix and even longer to make the video so I didn't go back to fix the mistake. I try to check and reply to comments. For now that's the best way to get in touch

@@colestrekal2609 Good question Each piece of the suit is connected with a USB cable and has its own data port. You get voltage drop if you chain a lot of lights together and not power inject. The first suit with a run on each leg and one on the arms, I didn't need power injection. However, For longer runs like the cape, I had a separate USB without data hooked to the end of the run to provide power injection

Near the end of the video, I talk about renaming the segment for the text. Once you get it configured, you can use presets to save your settings

@@BytesOfPi thank you - I didnt work a few times, but after I switched everything to an ESP32 board (used a 8266 for testing) for allday use - it suddenly worked without any reason. 👍

@@peterle987 Awesome! Glad you were able to resolve it with a different board. The 8266 probably didn't have enough memory

¡Gracias! Agradezco el cumplido. Mucho ha cambiado en los últimos años desde el video y mucha gente ha aprovechado la disponibilidad de microcontroladores y software de código abierto. Puedes optar por hacer 100% bricolaje como lo hice yo o comprar uno de los dispositivos digitales Quindors o Athom si no quieres construirlo tú mismo.

I've bought my level shifters from Amazon, but the reliability of them is sketchy at best. I think that WLED's page is probably your best bet: kno.wled.ge/basics/compatible-hardware/#levelshifters

@@simonemanzini7463 No problem and sorry for the late reply. Are you looking for how to build an WT32-ETH01 box for a mega tree or how to configure xLights for the mega tree configuration?

@@BytesOfPi a little both: 1 how to build the box, how many wt32-eth01 controllers should I use and how many outputs 2 how to split outputs in xlights

@@simonemanzini7463 I wanted to make a mega tree a few years ago but after a lot of research, I found that they are the most unstable structure in a show, requires a lot of engineering and maintenance, and the resulting images shown are pinched at the top. I do have a lot of thoughts though. Build One WT32-ETH01 should be enough for a 3000 pixel tree using 4 output ports. Looking at WLED's site: kno.wled.ge/features/multi-strip/#esp32 I built a 2365 bullet pixel matrix last year with only 3 ports and it should be similar to a mega tree. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5imk5mVipifnMU My initial thought is to use 4 ports with 750 pixels. Start with 2 ports from the bottom center of the tree and work one port to the left and other to the right. After running up and down in a serpentine pattern, pick up the other 2 ports when the first ones run out. Topper xLights does not include a star or topper in their model so run that with a separate port or controller Safety Finally, the most informative video I found for mega trees was this video. They cover multiple ways Mega trees failed over the years and how to build it to avoid the failures kzbin.info/www/bejne/sH2XoKKohcija7s

That is a good question. I had the same thought and I think it is possible, but it will probably involve modifying the FX.cpp function mode_2Dscrollingtext(void) function. I have an unlisted video (kzbin.info/www/bejne/aILMXo2dichrhM0) where I modify this for custom text, but I think you could modify it where you set effect speed slider to 0 and it will freeze.. You just need to calculate how big your text is and where the first letter needs to be drawn in relation to the center of your matrix.

Hey Joe, that's awesome! I hope you have a lot of success with your show this year! Let me see if i can answer the questions AP disappears Yes, if you plug in your ethernet, the board will use that instead of spinning up a local AP. Unplug ethernet and reboot if you want AP to start back up. No IP via Ethernet As far as not getting an IP from Ethernet without static, that is a little odd. My cards recognized the DHCP router, but I mapped their physical mac addresses to a single IP in the router. I have a section of one of my videos on that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpyqdKJvfM5ro80 How many nodes are you running on each port? It really depends. I have 6 WT32-ETH01 boards running WLED. I think the most nodes I run off of a single port is 884. The best advice on how many to put on a single port can be found here: kno.wled.ge/features/multi-strip/#esp32 -) perfect performance, 512 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs = 2048 LEDs. -) very good performance, 800 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs = 3200 LEDs. -) good performance, 1000 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs = 4000 LEDs. Beyond this is sketchy. Now... The WLED 3D patterns are dog slow on my 3 port 2365 LED matrix. Because I use FPP and xLights shows, I don't care. 5v only? All nodes are 5v except my latest 2365 pixel matrix... see my show info below Monitor your AC and DC current draws? Nope... haven't had a need yet. Electricity bill hasn't spiked as far as I noticed :) Hope these helped. This video is a couple of years old and I've expanded a lot since then... Some of my other videos may be helpful as well. Here's my current show right now. I was hoping to add leaping arches to my lawn this year, but life circumstances have put that on hold for now... Good luck and I hope your show works out this year! -) 6 WT32-ETH01 boards running WLED -) 5 5v 60A power supplies -) Raspberry Pi 4B with FPP -) 4795 5V bullet pixels -) 2365 12V bullet pixels

You can definitely give it a shot. I'm not sure of your particular setup, but if there are electrical components near those points it might help. Speaking of sheaths, my last data line was a sheathed coaxial cable I have lying around from the olden days of cable.

@@BytesOfPi Yea I have my ESP32 S3 in a Rack with alot of other gear and powersupply and above the rack is my Piano with all the lightstrips. So the ESP and Cables are around other devices closed in a metal rack. I will try it with the sheath current filter an see if the small higgs of lights every 30-50 sec will be todally removed. ;) I tried everything else of this video. 14AWG Cables, Level Shifter, Ohm Resistors to cleanup the signal, sordered the cables directly and checked with an multimeter all connections and even polarity check for the power outlet and the power supply to put it in in the right polarity (what I do for all devices, yup EU outlets suck) xD Still I have every 30-50 sec a small higgs of flicker for a sec. So this will be my last option I know 😅✌

@@marcusunivers oof.. if it's in a rack with a lot of other equipment, probably a lot to give it the jitters. Is there a way you can turn off everything else in your rack except the lights? If you can turn off everything but your powersource, ESP32 and lights, and get a stable connection, you can isolate your problem. Turn on one thing at a time till you get the jitters again. Also, Is there any way you could shorten the distance between your controllers and the lights? The closer you can get your ESP32 to the lights, the better.

@@BytesOfPi I tried it with the sheath current filter and it worked perfectly. No flicker anymore. 👍 And not really I cant shut down other Equipment in the rack because there are Mic Pres and Interfaces to use my Music Devices while doing Lightshows 😅✌

@@marcusunivers that is great news! Congratulations!

Glad you liked it! Thanks for the feedback

Hope you did well on your exam

No problem!

That is a good question. I assume that it supports Unicode characters. Have you tried opening the WLED UI in a browser and putting the unicode Cyrillic letters in the box?

I've not used buck converters in my builds, but I bet they give off a lot of electrical interference. If you can keep the converter as far away from your data line as possible that may help. Also just a shot in the dark but you could try a makeshift faraday cage by surrounding the converter with some tin foil

@@BytesOfPi I've used buck converters quite successfully with some types of strips. Muzata 3535, for instance. These FCOB strips are quite sensitive, however. Clever idea on the home-made faraday cage. I tried it but must have shorted out a couple of contacts because smoke started emanating from one of the components. I think I fried the ESP32 board because I can no longer connect to it. No biggie, I have spares and they are easy to program. Before introducing tin foil into your enclosure, ensure you have all of the contact points correctly isolated!

Hey, I'm using a WS2811 in my current project and it won't stop flickering, I'm using the ESP32 as a controller too, do you have any idea why this is happening, thanks in advance.

@@omarelabasery7101 Ensure that one of the ground pins from ESP32 is connected to the neutral from your power source. If that is the case, you may need to incorporate a level shifter into your circuit.

@@jeremymercer665 okay thank you 🙏❤️

Did you download the correct driver for the USB UART? I think its called CP210x_Windows_Drivers if you are using Windows.

@@pixelkedjan yes. Absolutely. Thinking that I was installing the driver wrong somehow is what started this frustration spiral I'm currently in.

What program are you using to flash your board? I may be mistaken, but I don't believe I had to download drivers when using vscode with platform io. While running the app, the adapter was recognized and used I'll concede that I downloaded drivers for an esp32 wroom board years before but it didn't need the ttl converter. I'll try to use a clean PC to confirm

@@BytesOfPi I'm using the WLED install website which should work if the USB module will be properly recognized by the computer.

Gotcha. I guess that's another reason I prefer using PlatformIO plugin for VSCode to install WLED besides the ability to customize the build.

Sorry about that. I try to jam a lot of info into a short space so some of it goes fast. I'm glad you caught the segment switch

Thanks! Actually in the last few years it's been getting cheaper and easier to get started. I've got a ton of videos about how I put it together. High level: -) Microcontrollers flashed with WLED -) Show composed with xLights software -) WS2811 Bullet pixels or WS2812 strips Start small with xLights on your PC, a strand or 2 of 5v lights and a WLED controller. You can run show and music off your computer. If you find you enjoy it, you can start: -) building props, -) run using a raspberry Pi FPP player -) use professional grade meanwell power supplies Start small and cheap and then build on: A few videos to check would be: Behind the scenes kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZatqaKihdWce5o Flash WLED kzbin.info/www/bejne/pKewXoR_ab-Sg5Y WLED, xLights and FPP kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpyqdKJvfM5ro80 Setup kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5y1fImfo7uog5Y

@@BytesOfPi awesome 👍 I'll definitely review them 😀 thanks a lot 🙏

That's awesome! I'm glad you got your show off the ground. Good luck on building your light show up.

Yep. That's where it started. I wanted a cheap entry into a display of individually addressable lights and spending $15 on a controller really beat out the $300+ Falcon controllers available at the time. Since that video, so many engineers have capitalized on WLED and microcontrollers (Quindor, Kulp, Forkineye, etc...). They build PCBs with preassembled components like level shifters and fuses that undercut the larger players for $40-$50 a pop. It's exciting to see how much has changed in the last 4 years and how many newcomers have gotten started since

There's definitely multiple ways to attack the problem. I have a few older defunct desktops that could donate a power supply that may be more reliable. The issue I was trying to address is that on a cold startup of my Chinese 5v power supplies to power the WT32-ETH01 board and lights, the board would not start up. I had to go physically disconnect the board from the power supply, wait a few seconds, then plug it back in. It's a hack for sure to use the NE555 timer to delay until the supply could provide a steady 5v, but it's worked in every build out since. All of my Chinese power supplies pooped out in a few years time and I've since moved on to meanwell supplies which haven't failed once. I might be able to take the delay out with better power supplies. I'm a big fan of keeping designs simple. Less points of failure. If there's a better supply that can spin up a board and lights reliably every time, I'd say go with that.

Thanks!