ESP8266 Community Forum

LedFreak_UK wrote:

lethe wrote:while a useful experiment it still it doesn't actually help with my initial question which boils down to "Why does the arduino run the display yet the nodeMCU doesn't?"

The Arduino board has a 0-5 volt output. The output current capability is also greater. I don't remember the spc put I think it is 30 or 40 mA, but for sure 20mA at the least. The ESP8266 is 0-3 volts and has a 12 mA output rating.

There are simple level shifter that will convert the signal to 5 volts. But they do not increase the current. They also can distort the waveform. You might have better success with the ESP8266 if you used a good line driver.

The capacitance of that mains wiring will be fairly substantial on that distance, maybe 2000 pF. The resistance is pretty irrelevant in this case.

As Rudy says the Arduino is probably working because of its lower drive resistance helping to preserve the waveform.

I go back to encouraging you to use an OTA solution to get rid of the cable run. This is actually very easy to add in to an existing sketch using the OTA library (ESP8266HTTPUpdateServer). It makes updates much easier to achieve and avoids having to make the serial connection other than the first time of putting OTA in. Once you do it you'll put OTA into everything you do.

btidey wrote:I go back to encouraging you to use an OTA solution to get rid of the cable run. This is actually very easy to add in to an existing sketch using the OTA library (ESP8266HTTPUpdateServer). It makes updates much easier to achieve and avoids having to make the serial connection other than the first time of putting OTA in. Once you do it you'll put OTA into everything you do.

I didn't manage to play yesterday but today I've been playing and playing and finally I looked at OTA and your BOTH right OTA is definitely the way to go about this.

Now I've played I wish I hadn't wasted so much time trying to get my idea to work...

The final nail in the coffin was my wife saying this morning "The choice is simple. to change the patterns you sit on the roof, stand under the porch in the shed with the laptop hoping it'll work, or sit in the car (potentially) and change them as many times as you want." I love my wife she sees things in ways that I definitely don't.

So off to the local diy/hardware store tomorrow and get some more IP65 boxes for for processors. The most annoying part is all the effort I put into removing the old boxes and putting in the extra connections in the shed, only to have to reinstate the old system again...

Never mind sometimes its just part of the the journey... Now wheres my new leds that turned up yesterday???

Thanks people!