How to Fix LED Flickering and Inject Power

The most common DIY LED problem and how to solve it. Flickering is a Data Signal problem.
Regardless of the Source of the problem a Data Booster is likely to fix it

Get the QuinLED Data Booster:

LED Troubleshooting Algorithms:

Data Signal Quality Article:

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[markroles]

I miss these short how to videos of yours. They are direct and to the point

[scottyanke]

What worked for me this year - 5v system, a 60a power supply every 3 trees, 2 for the roofline (100 ft), 12awg wire out to each tree (w/fuses, tho none blew), at each tree did a separate power run at every other 50 bulb string, used tasmota controlled power outlets to turn the power supplies on/off (some individual lights just stuck on otherwise) and separate 5v supplies out to each of my WLED controllers at each tree (10a powered at all times) w/20awg wire to each WLED controller (since I'm running 75ft out to each tree). Overall, it worked and drew less power than I expected because I only needed to run each tree at around 20% brightness. With 1200 lights on each tree that was bright enough. Other than one WLED controller being funky (water got in the case) it all went well. Thank you for all the recommendations for power injection. That really helped. Buying enough supplies early (like Oct) also helped. Quick disconnects, terminal blocks, cable by the 200 ft roll, heat shrink connectors, 3, 6, 9 & 15ft 3-cond extensions made it all possible.

[johngarofano]

Many of your viewers like me are in the KISS category keep it simple stupid, and you nailed, thank you, and I love your sense of humor, 😂😂😂 greetings from Australia❤

[thesuperknot_]

I have a Dig Uno powering 339 5v pixels on my house. Looking back, I absolutely should have done 12v and not had to worry about power injection.

I used slightly thicker wire for power injection to three railroad points on my install, and it works well. I only notice at full white (rare). Most effects don’t use all pixels at 5V. I also used a sacrificial pixel and my flickering disappeared.

I did end up buying more Permatrack than I needed but it made the job go so much quicker, so I consider that a sunk cost on my next install. Thanks, doc.

[mattnelson]

Thanks, very timely video for me and the issues I'm currently facing. I've got way to long of runs from my controller to my first pixel. At least I'm only working with under stair lighting, vs up on the roof. Otherwise I would be kicking myself for not hearing your earlier advice of fully testing things out on the counter, vs wiring it all up and hoping it works and troubleshooting up on ladders!

[lukasplonka]

You saved my worries, my data line wasnt properly connected thank you so much

[mikegatlinify]

This was fantastic. I bought the Govee permanent LED lights and have a huge gap to jump (about 30ft). Thanks for the info! Very easy to follow and comprehend!

[TravelingPerformers]

Finally I found video that explain it so perfect. Thank you ❤❤❤

[gedgicat]

Great video with lots of useful information 👍.
When it comes to cutting out the 1st bad pixel could this also be the out of the last good pixel being bad instead of the pixel it goes to?

[micklewis]

Turning off the first Pixel instatnty cured my woes. Thanks Much!!

[wondersteven]

Thanks, very informative, although I am confused about the 33 vs 249 switch on the data booster. When to use which? I'll watch some other YouTube videos to find out.

[jamiestarr]

Hi. Thank you for all your work. Question. The data injection unit shown in this video also has power wires that are connected. Does that mean it is both a data and power injector when it comes out the other side? Or does that data injection board need a power sources to work? Thanks

[TieDyedShawn]

I have a simple question. I am going to run my lights to each tree on there own run. The sections connect together with connectors. (They snap together) There are power injection point showing bare wire to connect to. My question is this. Do I need to weather proof these injection points and on the end of the run there is a connection point to add more lights. Do I need to weather proof that also. Thank you for your help.

[DerekHolmes]

It was a great summary. It might be worth noting that with 12v the actual power use per LED is higher. So if you have a really large project you will have more power draw at your power supply using 12v than you would with 5v.

[jeremiahworkman]

Yep, this is my exact problem. If I'm 25ft from my control box to my first pixel, do I need three boosters, 1 every 10 feet? Or is one pixel along the way, enough?

[boocoo]

After watching just about every video you posted I decided to I build a 5v LED cloud design with some cotton and a metal frame for my daughters ceiling. My question is how long can the power cable be from the power source to the ESP 8266 before it becomes a problem? I want to try and hide the cable in the corner of the wall with a piece of trim. I am brand new to this DIY thing but im hooked immediately. Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.

[timdaye]

Dr. Zzs: Thanks for all these helpful videos. I have a plan to outline my roofline, garage, 2 windows and porch pillars with ws2811 12v bullet LEDs. I am using a DigQuad so I can utilize the 4 channels, the roofline (1), the garage (2), the 2 windows (3) and finally the porch pillars (4). Here is my problem, the run from the controller to the garage will be rather long (somewhere between 35'-40'). If I run power separate from the data cable, how far can the data cable go before it needs a data booster? Is that length of data cable even possible? Can more than one data booster be utilized in the run? Is it ok to bring the 3 cables together into a short xConnector pigtail to go into and out of the data booster? Thanks for your time!

[idriveE]

Thanks man, I'm about to run 5v strips in v channels on roof line and power inject was concerning so yes home run to dig quad it is then also going to to do bench testing to see when when led dim thank you

[kartunenetwork]

Great Video! I'm wondering why for my case, 40 LEDs from my esp32s-3 (WLED), was working fine until i turned it off, then now it flickers. I changed GPIOs and it worked again, until i power cycled it again. Do you know why it does this? (The whole strip flickers, i've also skipped 1st LED).

[Electronieks]

You solved my problem with wled and ws2811 flickering.
A gnd problem it was