ESP8266 Community Forum

Hello. I recently built a project using an ESP8266 based board. I had 4 of these https://www.adafruit.com/product/2294 connected to it for a total of 1024 led's. They were connected with the Dout of one connected to the Din of the next one, all grounds connected together, and the +5v connected to the power source with its own individual connections.

I had a basic web interface that I could connect to via wifi to show either scrolling text or a light show. It worked fine after I first started it up, but after a while the web interface would no longer respond, then shortly after it would crash requiring a restart.

Here is the code:
https://github.com/drclaw1188/ravesign/ ... vesign.ino

I am wondering if I'm trying to drive too many LED's? Perhaps it is too many LED's for the signal wire to support. Another possibility is that I am drawing too much current, but I do keep the current low by keeping the RGB values low and not activating too many LEDs at the same time. Or perhaps something else is wrong?

Thanks.

Update: I've added this code:

if( cur_time > nextShowRam ) {
Serial.print( "Free Memory: " );
Serial.println( ESP.getFreeHeap() );
nextShowRam += 2000;
}

within the main loop to show how much ram is available. What happens when the Wifi WAP goes away (but the light show or scrolling text is still running) is that the output of ESP.getFreeHeap() goes down by about 200 every 10 seconds. It seems like the Wifi is trying to reset or something and is not resetting properly, not freeing the RAM it used and RAM eventually runs out.

Perhaps I could try a different board? Does anybody have a suggestion for a good board for a beginner that has as much as possible soldered on the board (like USB and power connections) and can drive 1024 WS2812B LEDs? Perhaps a ESP32 board?

Thanks.

An arduino mega can do it up to 1500 LEDs or so.

But I have a similar problem: I need to control 2048 or 2560 if possible , thats 8 to 10 16X16 WS2812b panels.

BTW did you find a solution?