Upgrade your Christmas tree with Sound Reactive WLED

[@IntermitTech]

Your video came by in the Discord and I had to check it out! Awesome work on the Christmas tree, it's looking great! I haven't played with sound reactive on my Christmas tree yet but might need to give it a go! Thank you very much for the kind shoutout for the boards, that's very much appreciated! ☺

[@ResinChemTech]

Hello Quindor! Thank you so much for taking time not only to watch, but to add a comment. I have (and will continue to) recommend the Dig boards to those that don't care to build their own. I've received comments in some of my other WLED videos asking about selling versions of the (very) basic WLED controllers that I build. I always point them at your site. Thanks for all the info you have shared as you have played a big part in my own LED and home automation journey. As an aside, thanks so much for the data booster board! It solved a nagging problem with some LED lighting in my garage and I plan on featuring that in a video at some point too.

[@IntermitTech]

@@ResinChemTech Hey hey, that's awesome to hear and appreciate that, glad to the little Data-Booster board was also to solve some issues! :D

[@benjaminreinhardt259]

I like it! Got a suggestion for you - put the controller in a box and wrap it up like a present under the tree. Merry Christmas!

[@ResinChemTech]

Great idea! Thanks for passing it along. Happy Thanksgiving!

[@rsmaster5637]

Use fire resistant paper to prevent the fire hazzard

[@manukalias]

Very Nice X-Mas Tree Effects Loved it 😍😍

[@compedium]

really nice video, thanks

[@ResinChemTech]

Thank you! I just wish I could find a better way to film LEDs. Everything just overwhelms the camera and doesn't give a true indication of how they really look. Thanks for watching and taking time to comment!

[@jcarlomorales2612]

I thank you for awesome ideas from NY ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@ResinChemTech]

You are very welcome! Actually, we just finished taking the tree down today. But it worked well again this year. Using Home Assistant, the tree turned on every evening 10 minutes after sunset, started a WLED playlist of effects and then shut itself off at 11 pm. Basically, after the first night, I didn't have to touch the tree again until today! Thanks for watching. Happy New Year (from Indiana)!

[@TheOldKid]

OK my esp32 wroom has Sr wled installed and powered separately from lights. Data on D2, mic has power and gain connected to 3.3 with ground next to it to ground on mic and output to vp(36). Sound settings shows pin 36. I've played with gain and squelch, mic listing is general analog. I can get lights from Sr effects but no reaction. This is a second mic and second esp32. I'm obviously doing something wrong or failing to provide needed info in sound settings or other settings. I'm open to any suggestions

[@TheOldKid]

Magnets. My light box is 3" tall, 4" deep and 24" long. To lock the back on my 12ga sheet metal box I welded 8 tabs and epoxied magnets to them. Sr wled worked when I pulled the board out but with the board inside the box it would not. Thinking the magnets could be causing my problem I removed them and lightswork fine. I never could get the wifi to work on their network even though my phone and laptop worked fine

[@ResinChemTech]

Ah... that would likely explain the signal problems. Wifi in general doesn't do well with metal. Now, your laptop and phone my have worked because they might have had better radios than their wifi, or their wifi was simply weaker due to the router/access point and it's placement. As a general rule of thumb, you probably want to try to avoid enclosing any device requiring a radio signal of any sort (wifi, bluetooth, ZIgbee, etc) inside of a metal enclosure. Plastic, and even wood, are probably OK... but metal will always have an impact on the signal.. and even if/when it works, the signal will be much more unreliable. I experience this now with my Zigbee mailbox sensor that is inside my metal mailbox. I had to drill a small hole in the back of the mailbox, and add a Zigbee extender to get a signal at all. And as you discovered... magnets probably aren't a good idea either! Just a general recommendation, based on my own past experiences.

[@111Leonidas]

Fantastic! Great video and discription on the blog. I see that you bypass the dig uno for the power to the leds (and so don 't make use of the fuse on it) . Is that because the connectors for the outgoing power on the dig uno are to small for the wires?

[@ResinChemTech]

Yeah, that's part of it. The latest version of the DigLED boards change the terminals to make it easier to accommodate larger gauge wiring. And to be honest, I've gotten so use to running the power separately to the LEDs and the controller (as my normal D1 Mini can't handle any real current), that's just what I duplicated here.

[@wittchow]

Bypassing the dig-uno for power to the lights you are losing some of the features correct? No fuse or capacitor.

[@ResinChemTech]

Yes... you are absolutely correct. But I believe the original v1 of the DigUno (which is what I used) wasn't rated for the continuous amps that my lights could pull when on full bright white. And of course, I should have added my own fusing instead of just relying on the power supply safety features. This year I do planning on adding my own fuse... or I may replace the DigUno with a DigQuad... which is appropriately rated for the amount of current that my lights could pull. But I appreciate you taking the time to point that out. I should have covered it in the video... and why I was running the power outside of the DigUno.

[@GameStreit]

This is exactly what i have been looking for. A few years back we found a GE pre-lit tree on Black Friday at Lowes. It had a simple remote and had the ability to sync to a Bluetooth speaker. Once connected to the speaker the lights would dance. Last year shortly after the tree was up, the speaker function and dancing lights stopped working. The light still worked just not the speaker and dancing lights. We love the size of the tree , so i might do this upgrade with the microphone. My wife loves the option to have warm white lights. Would you still recommend RGB light or should i look at RGBW lights? If RGBW do you have any recommendations?

[@ResinChemTech]

I've been very happy with ours. I'm about to pull it out for its third year of use. And the setup couldn't be easier. Once it is out of the box, it is less than 10 minutes before it is up, lit and running. I'm just using RGB. I'm not sure if they make or sell a WS2811 bullet-style string that also have a dedicated white channel in addition to RGB, but I haven't spent a lot of time searching either. For normal 5V LED strips, I like the SK6812... and you can obviously get 12V strips in RGBW... but those wouldn't be appropriate for a Christmas tree. The white from just RGB is definitely a cool bluish white. I really don't have any recommendations. But the new fairy lights might also be an option. You _could_ string the tree with both RGB LEDs and then add something liked dedicated warm white fairy lights. Since the ESP32 can support multiple data channels, you could still use a single controller to control both the RGB LEDs and the warm white LEDs. Good luck. Let me know how it works out for you... and of course if you have any additional questions.

[@24framestudios]

Which app can be used to control these? I looked for wled but it says it’s not available in my region (USA)

[@ResinChemTech]

WLED is definitely available in the US... as that's where I am also located. You can find the official WLED here: kno.wled.ge/ including instruction on how to install it. If you are looking for the sound-reactive version, it can be found here: github.com/atuline/WLED/ but note that the sound-reactive version no longer supports the ESP8266... you must use an ESP32 for the sound-reactive features. Hope that helps. Let me know if you need more info, but both versions are available in the U.S.

[@James-gg4ld]

It looks like you may have left the original light on the tree, do you still use them or is there another reason?

[@ResinChemTech]

In all honesty, I started to remove them. But after about 3 hours and having only removed maybe 1/3 of the lower section, I opted to just leave them. Those small clips I used to attach the new pixels were really "on" the old lights. And the original lights were a huge convoluted wiring mess. They didn't simply wrap around the tree in a "normal" line like you'd think. So, despite cutting a bunch of the wire and working my fingers to near bleeding, I abandoned the process and just left them on! In all honesty, if I had known it was going to be as difficult as it was, I would have left everything there and considered using the old lights in some sort of supplemental manner... maybe with a smart plug and automation. But after I started cutting wire, it was too late. I'll give the original tree manufacturer credit... those old lights were not coming loose on their own!

[@borolo222]

I think you can power de Dig uno via 12v

[@ResinChemTech]

Yep... I believed that I mentioned that as one of the advantages. The DigUno has the DC/DC step down built in. In fact, the newest version can take an input of up to 24 volts.

[@rhandy209]

Nice setup. What wire guage did you used for the power injection by the way?

[@ResinChemTech]

Thanks. I used 12 gauge for the connection between the power supply and terminals, 16 gauge for the power injection runs (although the harnesses are 12 gauge) and 18 gauge for everything else (connection to the controller and LED signal). If you plan on running the tree on full brightness white (it's really bright!) for an extended time, you might want to consider 14 gauge or even 12 gauge to be extra safe. But I have the brightness set at about 50% and most of the effects require substantially less than 10A... and I already had a 100ft spool of 16 gauge, so that's what I used!

[@TheOldKid]

Update: I changed my mic output from vp(36) to gpio35, hit reset and boom I have dancing lights

[@ResinChemTech]

Woohoo! Congrats. Interesting that changing from GPIO36 to GPIO35 would make a difference, as either can be used as an analog input. But there is always a possibility that the vendor of that particular board did something non-standard that made GPIO36 something other than "normal". I don't know what else could be the reason. But nice job of troubleshooting. Now, you will probably discover what I think is still an issue with the sound-reactive version (unless it's been addressed in later versions). The optimal gain and squelch settings appear to be different depending on which 2D effect you select. If you adjust the gain/squelch for a good effect on one 2D effect, then switch to a different effect, the previous gain/squelch either overwhelms the effect or is set so that the music barely has an effect. You tweak the gain/squelch for the new effect and return back to the original, then it's all messed up. It would be nice if you could set a preset that also maintained the gain/squelch for that particular effect's settings. But that isn't possible... at least in my older version. Let me know if you see the same issue or if it might be fixed in a later version (and maybe that will force me to upgrade mine!). Congrats again on getting it working.

[@TheOldKid]

@ResinChem Tech I'm in the process of mounting it all on pcb board. When done I'll check to be sure but enabled the auto gain. I didn't play around a lot but once I got sound reaction I checked several effects and they worked really well with no adjustment. I'll show my buddy and his wife the menus and they can play till theirs are content. I'm headed over to drop it back off tomorrow. Thanks for all your input. It's been really helpful

[@ResinChemTech]

Well... there'd be one difference! My version doesn't have an auto-gain option! Looks like I need to upgrade a few controllers!

[@TheOldKid]

@ResinChem Tech well got everything soldered together, tested it and worked great. Put electronics in and put the back on and no sound reaction and can't stay connected. Took electronics back out and still no action. Recap. Hooked it up worked great. Unplugged, put things in their place and back to square 1. He may just have to do without sr

[@TheOldKid]

Omg now it's working. Gotta be signal issue. I didn't set it to my wifi since I'll be adding his info tomorrow. I'll update tomorrow

[@Voha]

Где скачать Ваши пресеты? Очень хочу такие на ёлку, спасибо

[@ResinChemTech]

См. Эту статью в блоге для деталей: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/11/rewiring-christmas-tree-for-wled.html

[@Voha]

@@ResinChemTech извините, но там по ссылке я нахожу только описание как собрать, я перешел по нескольким ссылкам, там тоже описания как собрать, я не могу найти пресеты, к сожалению(((. Если Вас не осложнит, скопируйте и вставьте сюда ссылку на файл с Вашими пресетами, спасибо!

[@ResinChemTech]

Эффекты и пресеты являются частью WLED. Это не то, что я создал. На видео просто показан случайный выбор. См. Https://kno.wled.ge/features/effects-palettes/ для получения списка доступных эффектов. Извините, я не могу предоставить больше.

[@Voha]

@@ResinChemTech да, я знаю, я делал подсветку для разных устройств с применением wled. Вчера я сделал гирлянду для ёлки, но не было возможности повесить на ёлку. Я думал у Вас попросить экспортировать Ваши файлы пресетов в настройках Wled. Но раз говорите это сложно, то я попробую сделать пресеты самостоятельно. СВпасибо

[@-92tv47]

😊👍🎅☃️🎄

[@JamesMartin2014]

Quinled stuff is never in stock.

[@ResinChemTech]

Yeah... that can be a problem! Of course, you can always build your own WLED controller (and for a lot less: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5fZZ6qMaLegbKM). Actually, I bought a couple of DigUnos and a DigQuad when I saw they were in stock, although I didn't have a use for them at the time. The DigQuad is still sitting on a shelf. The Christmas tree seemed like a good opportunity to try out the DigUno. Otherwise, I would just build my own, which is what I normally do. Although I would consider adding a fuse for the Christmas tree... and of course if you are using 12V LEDs, you will need to step that down to 5V for the controller.

[@СергейОрлов-ш2б]

Спасибо за видео. Sound Reactive - говно!

[@igorbeliy5815]

Что не говно?