Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

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ltolenti
 
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Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

Hello!
I have been working with the DotStar 60 LED white strips (ID: 2240). I have bought a total of 11 x four-meter strips and all work great except for 2 of the four-meter strips. These two don't power on at all, and I have tested using component configs and Arduino + code that work fine with all the other strips.
I bought these on August 30. What is your policy or returns and replacements for them? I will need working ones no later than September 23, 2022. What is the fastest way to have these exchanged?
Thanks for your quick response!!

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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

These two don't power on at all, and I have tested using component configs and Arduino + code that work fine with all the other strips.
How many components are there? Not sure how complex the setup is here. Can you post a photo of what your setup looks like and how the DotStar strips are being connected.

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ltolenti
 
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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

adafruit-led-setup-SM.jpg
adafruit-led-setup-SM.jpg (400.17 KiB) Viewed 63 times
This is my setup. I have a 1000uF capacitor and power wires from the LED strips going directly into the 5V10A power adapter. I have the control wires going directly into the Arduino. This works perfectly on all the strips except for one strip now; I was able to get the second to work. But after triple checking and exchanging all the parts and re-tightening the screws on the power plug, still nothing turns on.

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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

Running the strand test code on the Adafruit tutorial,
  1. the blue wire (connected to the black LED strip control wire) goes to ground.
  2. the yellow wire (clock pin) goes to Arduino pin 13 (switched from pin 5 in the original code)
  3. the green wire (data pin) goes to Arduino pin 11 (switched from pin 4 in the original code)

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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Thanks. That all seems fine.
This works perfectly on all the strips except for one strip now

So you were able to get at least one of the PID 2240 strips working?

Have you double checked the direction? To make sure you're attaching to the input side of the strip. Look for the arrows:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-dot ... ds-3004523

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ltolenti
 
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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

I have 10 of the 11 strips working. There is just one that does not light up. I am out of town installing the working ones right now, so I can look tomorrow night to see if the manufacturer did not solder the wires in the correct direction. All the reels appeared identical otherwise.

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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

The 30 day window for returning the LED strip is coming up this weekend (I received it Sept 3). May I still return the strip for a refund or credit?

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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Don't worry about the 30 day window. If the troubleshooting being done here ends up going past the 30 days, that's OK. The date of your initial post above is what essentially sets that time.

Let us know when you are able to verify the soldering on the strip.

It sounds like some work on these strips was done by someone else? Who is the "manufacturer" mentioned?

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ltolenti
 
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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by ltolenti »

I don't know who the actual manufacturer is. I meant, the manufacturer that Adafruit buys from ... unless Adafruit attaches the connectors to the reels before shipping them out. If you buy 4 meters, you get a reel with the wire connectors attached at the ends for free, which is why I bought them. It's possible that there is a problem with the wire or it is a cold soldering.
The non-working LED strip doesn't have any arrows (I checked both front and back). The orientation, however, is the same as the working ones.
Looking on both sides of a single LED, the left labels top-down read "VCC, CI, DI, GND" and the right labels read "VCC, CO, DO, GND".
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Re: Adafruit DotStar 60 LED, White 4M not powering

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

I meant, the manufacturer that Adafruit buys from
Ah, OK. That makes sense. It sounded more like maybe someone else was doing additional work on these as part of an assembly or something.

The end you are holding in the photo is the input end. No arrows, but the DI stand for Data In. DO is Data Out. So can determine flow direction by looking at an individual pixel:
strip.png
strip.png (281.63 KiB) Viewed 47 times
Data In from the left and Data Out to the right.

And connections in the original photo above with the UNO look correct.

OK, let's just replace the strip. Send an email to [email protected] with a link to this thread and your order number and they can send you a replacement DotStar strip.

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