UNO + WS2801 (adalight) not working

[pastavibes]

I just got my Adalight package in the mail and I'm testing it out for the first time. I've done some breadboarding before, but I'm not entirely sure of what I"m doing.

I checked the wiring guides but none of them looked like my led strand. The 20mm round tutorial had the same wiring colors and the 12mm round tutorial had the same format LEDs, but nothing I found had the same LED chipboards (the 12mm round tutorial said there would be an "INPUT" label..I found none). Also, none of the tutorials mentioned anything like the ends of my strand--there are two black ends, one male one female. I'm assuming this is to make stringing strands together much easier.

So not having determined which was the input side I took a guess (probably not smart) and wired the female end up to the board. I loaded up the strandtest from the 12mm round LED tutorial and ran it. Nothing. Rather, none of the strand LEDs lit up. The LED on the board (13?) did light up (and I ran one of the simple arduino tutorials beforehand just to confirm that my computer was talking to the uno).

I then tried wiring the male end up, but still nothing. FWIW the male end enters the first LED on the more "interesting" side of the LED chipboard--the side with lots of small features. The female end of the strand enters the first LED on the side with the bigger black chip.

I'm wondering if wiring to the female end (a) was wrong, and (b) could have damaged my strand? The picture below shows how it's wired to the male end (I removed the end for easier access to the wires).

Thanks!

[joshuuuaa]

I just got my kit yesterday and ran into some issues too.
I also took a guess at which end to wire up and i picked the male end and couldn't get anything to work. Switched it around to the female end and it worked.
My wiring is:
Blue : GND P.S. & GND Uno
Green: Clock pin13
Yellow: Data pin11
Red: +5 P.S.

I can get strandtest to work https://github.com/adafruit/WS2801-Library
Just had to change the strandtest sketch to match my setup using pins 11 & 13 instead of 2 & 3

[pastavibes]

hmm, that's troubling. I set mine up the way you described and still nothing. Should I cut off the first LED in the strand and try again? Or cut off the female end and solder the breadboard wires directly to the led wires?

[adafruit]

we just tried the pixels, it does look like they are green and they used to be white and the labels are different but they do work (we just tested them OK)

please upload the strandtest example from the WS2801 library
connect 5V to the pixels and then the YELLOW wire to digital 4 and GREEN to digital 3
don't cut any pixels!
don't run any adalight code!
use the 'end' that has the socket 'female' connector - you should be able to just plug some wires in

[pastavibes]

that doesn't seem to work either. the strandtest says data pin is 2 and clock pin is 3. regardless, I checked all combinations of green and yellow in pins 1-4 and nothing made a difference. I also tried swapping out the breadboard wires I was using, to no avail.

[adafruit]

can you post a bigger photo of your setup? it -could- be the strand but we should test everything else first!

[pastavibes]

Here's a larger picture of the setup.

Wiring:
red: power supply +
blue: arduino GND and power supply -
yellow: digital 3
green: digital 4
(the program's values for data and clock pins match the wiring)

The usb cable is plugged into my laptop, and the power supply is plugged into a good wall outlet.

None of the wires on the other end of the strand are connected to anything.

[pastavibes]

I should have mentioned above, but: the ON led and L led (near digital 13) are both lit.

[adafruit]

hmm, OK it sounds like you have a bad strand you could try a few more quick things - verify the voltage from the 2.1mm adapter is 5VDC. try swapping the clk/data lines for fun, triple check you're uploading the right example
still not working? email support@adafruit for a new one!
if you are feeling industrious you could try chopping the first pixel off but we can send you a replacement too

[pastavibes]

Ok I just got a multimeter and various other tools in the mail and I've verified that the power adapter outputs 5.25vdc. I also tested the data and clock lines and saw that the clock toggles between about 2.3 and .2 VDC and the data line is steady at .15.

Assuming this was all correct I chopped off the first pixel and tried again. There was no improvement, so I think I'll email support. Thanks for all your help!

[dedokta]

I just had the exact same problem and I'm pretty sure I have found the SOLUTION!

They've wire your lights up incorrectly! I had a set of the bullet lights and they worked fine. I bought some new one, flat one this time and no joy! After looking at lots of pictures I discovered they are incorrectly wired!

Your wires (Like my flat ones) go red yellow green blue. They should go red blue green yellow.

On your setup try it this way:

Red: 5v
Yellow: Gnd
Green: pin 3 (clock)
Blue: pin2 (Data)

I think they changed the boards inside the mold and didn't change the wiring over correctly.

Dok.