PRO TRINKET 5V FLICKERING NEOPIXELS

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Nalath
 
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Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2020 12:28 pm

PRO TRINKET 5V FLICKERING NEOPIXELS

Post by Nalath »

Dear Support Team,
Hope you are doing well! I wanted to get your support for a weird issue I have on my circuit. Thanks in advance!

Material:
Li-ion battery 3.7V/6600 mAh + PowerBoost 500 Basic supplying the whole thing with 5V, 1µF Capacitor between +/-
Adafruit Pro Trinket 5V
RGB NeoPixels groups (1 x 2 neo, 3 x 5 neo & 1 x 9 neo), 470 Ohm resistor on the data pin

Issue:
When pushing red, blue or green or any combinaison of two colors, it works fine. However, when pushing the three colors together I observe some flickering green in the overall white the neos produce. Only the groups of 5 NeoPixels get this issue (pins 4, 5, 6), the group of 9 (pin 3) and the group of 2 (pin 8) turn white with no problem... I tried to switch pins already, same issue...

I will try to use other group of five as some neopixel could be damaged in those chains... This is the only issue I can come up with...

Any idea or experience sharing about the same?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Nalath

Code: Select all

Adafruit_NeoPixel STRIP_CRISTAL_1 = Adafruit_NeoPixel(5, 4, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
Adafruit_NeoPixel STRIP_CRISTAL_2 = Adafruit_NeoPixel(5, 5, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
Adafruit_NeoPixel STRIP_CRISTAL_3 = Adafruit_NeoPixel(5, 6, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
pinMode(6, OUTPUT);
STRIP_CRISTAL_1.begin();
STRIP_CRISTAL_2.begin();
STRIP_CRISTAL_3.begin();
STRIP_CRISTAL_1.setBrightness(bright);
STRIP_CRISTAL_2.setBrightness(bright);
STRIP_CRISTAL_3.setBrightness(bright);
STRIP_CRISTAL_1.show();
STRIP_CRISTAL_2.show();
STRIP_CRISTAL_3.show();

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am

Re: PRO TRINKET 5V FLICKERING NEOPIXELS

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

You only posted a fragment of your code. But from your description I count 26 pixels. Driving them all at full intensity white would try to pull about 1500mA. That is more than the PowerBoost 500 can source.

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Nalath
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2020 12:28 pm

Re: PRO TRINKET 5V FLICKERING NEOPIXELS

Post by Nalath »

Thanks Bill!
Actually I did not want to flood with the entire code, but you get a good point here. The PowerBoost 500 would not be sufficient even with the lower intensity I did set up... I did test by exchanging with a PowerBoost 1000C and actually the Cristal_3 behaved as expected while Cristal_2 and Cristal_1 did flicker again... So I guess this would cause a drop in the supply tension which would result in the unstable behaviour or the NeoPixels (like the classic 3.3V).
So I guess I will need to develop another animation that would be supported by the hardware and drain less current...

Thanks again for your efficient and swift response :)

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