tl;dr How do I power 12v ARGB strips with a 5v ESPHome controller?
I've got 50' of 12v 3pin ARGB strips that were previously cut up into several smaller sections. I want to reuse them around the home in certain discrete locations but they only came with one controller. So I bought a bunch of esphome compatible controllers and flashed them. But then I found out that they only output 5v which won't power the strips. Is there some way I can amp these controllers? I imagine I'll have to shim some power source between the controllers and the strip but I don't know how. Or is this way too much effort or futile and I should just get 5v strips and/or 12v controllers?
Dc-dc step up converter if your controller can do needed wattage.
With small note, that if you want to do pwm dimming (colors), there is a high possibility of it not working.Okay, I searched around I can’t find for the life of me what is controlling voltage of 12v argb. So do dc/dc on the 2 power lines and send control as is?Search for your led pin out diagram otherwise, if you don’t want to buy up converter on a chance. Gnd and power will still have to be supplied by up-converter, but vcc will either be accepted as is (it’s like 1v); if it’s higher - too much effort I think; if it’s lower, you’ll need a resistor
So on the strips the contacts are labeled 12v, Dout, and Gnd. Looking around it seems like 5v is the standard for ARGB strips and 12v for RGB, but that's all coming from the PC Desktop world. I've got some cheap dorm room strips that don't seem to follow that standard.
The controller is a D1 Mini Pro. it has 5v, Dout, and Gnd. From what I've understood so far, I should only attach the Dout and provide 12v and Gnd from some separate DC power supply, or should I attach Gnd to the controller? I think the pin out for GPIO pins is 3.3v. No idea what the strip expects. I've got a voltmeter and the original controller so I could probably figure it out.
Otherwise buying a separate power supply and hooking it up might be more money and effort than buying 5v strips and cutting them to my liking.
Yes, so you can connect 5v/gnd to 5v-12v converter (they cost like 10 bucks in bezos shop, people like to use usb to power 12v :disgost: ) and use 12v/gnd both. (No separate dc is needed. you can use one, but you’ll have to use same ground with controller in that case)
The dout is digital controlling voltage, it has a range in which it sends bits (voltage steps) to control color/brightness/address of led (0-1 bit is 0-1v or something else). If dout is compatible you can just send it as is. If it’s not- (I.e. your strip expects 0-0.5v digital or some shit), you are likely boned. So buy converter, pass through dout and see :shrug-outta-hecks:
