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all right
so if you've known me for some time I
have been interested in LED technology
like this right here because I just
think it's really fascinating and a
really awesome way to light up your
space and for the longest time I've
always recommended lifx LED strips to
you guys to purchase because I just
think they're the best with the effects
that you can do with them and I think
effects are what really set these things
apart so in front of me right here is a
Philips hue LED strip now these things
are really expensive and to be honest
I've got no idea why other than the fact
that they are super reliable I'd install
something like this for my clients for
example like the beta squad for example
I want to install it leave it and I want
it to basically just work the problem is
with these though yeah they're great you
can light them up with a color and turn
them off and on Via a mobile app but it
literally ends there no effects or
anything now behind this screen right
here I've got a lifx trip you can see me
turning that on there and I can also go
ahead and adjust the brightness the
things I like about the lifx strips
though is that you can go onto themes
here and choose one of these themes and
what this will do is go ahead and on
different portions of the actual strip
themselves you can assign a different
color and then you can actually go ahead
and animate these so they change and I'm
just clicking on the different themes
here but just to show you guys that
we've got green down here red here
purple up here you can have a different
color along the entire strip now as good
as the lifx strips are they do come with
some downsides the first thing is the
price back to the Philips Hue strip for
a second to get set up with that
ecosystem you not only need the strip
itself but you need the Philips Hue
bridge to interface with your internet
connection the difference with these
lifx ones is they work over Wi-Fi this
is the controller for the lifx strip and
as you can see it's power in one side
and then a cable out to the LED strip
the other problems with these ready-made
systems is that they are all built in so
let's say we want to extend the cable
between the box here the controller box
in our LED strip well we can't do that
because it's pre-made and I have tried
and attempted to do that but it's not
powerful enough this thing is not
powerful enough to go longer than this
cable run now in this video I'm going to
show you how to turn one of these little
ESP development boards these things are
a Fiverr off Amazon into your own custom
LED controller which come with loads of
benefits you can run an extremely long
cable between here and the start of your
LED strip you can choose the power
supply depending on how many LEDs you
want to drive and the icing on the cake
you can run some insane effects of this
effects unlike what you can find even on
the lifx strip and I think this is going
to blow you guys away as to how simple
this is so without further Ado let's get
straight into this now this thing does
look super super intimidating but I'm
going to walk you through step by step
on how to do this and honestly it's
really easy these have Wi-Fi built in
and a microwave a USB port so to get
this thing set up we're going to micro
USB this into the side of our computer
so once you've got your development
board hooked into your computer I'm on a
Mac here it also works on Windows go to
Google and type in install
wled and then click on the first one
here and it's going to take you to
install.wled dot me now here we have an
option to tick if our board has Ethernet
or not now you can get these ESP boards
with built-in ethernet this one has
Wi-Fi which we're going to be utilizing
choose the latest version of wled go
ahead and click on install and then you
want to choose the development board
which is here the one that we've just
plugged into our computer go ahead and
click connect and then it's going to go
ahead and connect and basically click
install wled install and that is it
installation complete that literally
took all of two minutes click next and
now it's going to ask for our Wi-Fi
password so go ahead and enter in your
Wi-Fi you want your board to connect to
so it's taken about three minutes to
install the wled software on our
development board and tell it our Wi-Fi
password once it's connected it's going
to say on your screen visit device now
this device has connected to your Wi-Fi
and giving itself an IP address and as
you can see I'm connected to right now
192.168.55.88 your number will be
different here so don't worry about that
but this is the main console for wled
how easy was that now if I go ahead and
click the power button here you can see
on this board if I turn off the power
it turns off the LED we turn back on the
power it turns on the LED so if we can
control One LED on this board how about
300 now another great plus side to this
is you can choose what LED strip you
would like to use so if you come in
close and look at these for a quick
second you can see that we've got the
lifx strip here and you can see the
distance between each LED then we've got
a super cheap LED strip and then we've
got the ones that I've purchased for
this project which have the LEDs super
close together now why would you want
them close together mainly because
the effects will look better the closer
the LEDs are together so I'm going to
have all this stuff Linked In the
description these things may look
daunting but it's really not because
most people that do this will actually
solder straight to this development
board but what we're going to do is use
some of these as a little hack and you
can basically just tear these off here
and then you've got a little cable here
which can go onto the pins of your
development board so what I'm going to
do is with the LED strips that I've
bought here they come with this little
connector on the end so I'm basically
going to say bye bye to that and then
I'm going to Bear all of these wires and
to these wires I'm going to connect in
these which are our little jumper cables
and just for now until we get things up
and running I'm just going to twist them
together just so we can prove that it's
working so this is where you have to
follow along really carefully we're
going to want to take our positive and
that is going to want to go on the VIN
terminal on our ESP board then we're
going to want to take our negative or
ground and this is going to go on the
ground pin so for me that is right next
to the VIN Port there and then this is
our data cable so this is what tells
which LEDs to change to what color which
ones to light up and which ones not to
this is going to go on the D4 pin so one
two three four there's our D4 straight
on there and as you can see our LEDs
have lit up but not all of them as you
can see they stop there why is this so
in this one meter strip that I have
bought we can see here via the Amazon
listing that we have 144 LEDs on this
one strip so let's go back to our wled
software we're going to go ahead and
click on config here LED preferences and
then here where it says length we're
going to change this from 30 to 144 and
then we're going to go ahead and click
save and now you can see that all of our
LEDs have lit up so if I click back here
and change around on this color wheel
you can see whatever color I set this 2
it changes color great so we've got our
sort of Philips Hue ripoff right here
what I'm going to go ahead and do now
though is click on the effects tab just
to show you guys a few of these effects
one of my favorite ones is fireworks 1D
so I'm going to use the search click on
fireworks 1D here and as you can see it
sends out some fireworks
and then the fireworks explode yeah you
guys get the point you can't do stuff
like this with Philips Hue you can
almost get there with lifx but it's not
cool effects like this and as you can
see via this list there are hundreds of
different effects that are pre-installed
and you can even code if you would like
to your own custom effects and do things
like light shows with this okay so now
all of this is set up what I can go
ahead and do is use some heat shrink
tubing to make sure all of these aren't
exposed to the elements but before I go
ahead and do that I'm going to actually
extend these wires so we have a few
meters of cable to play with between our
controller and the start of our LED
strip and to do that I'm going to use
some bog standard Cat5e ethernet cable
foreign
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as you can see we have our LED strip
here running our fireworks 1D effect it
is connected to our ESP board with our
cable here cat 5e and as you can see
it's all working now the next step is to
basically put these things into these
diffuser tubes so you'll be able to see
here as I apply this piece of diffuser
over the LED strip which is inside the
tube you can see how that changes how
this looks okay so we have our first LED
strip installed running the effects now
Jed has helped me do three more of these
so with these connectors what we can go
ahead and do is basically just connect
to them together now the beauty of this
is let's say you wanted some space
between each one of your strips like we
did between the first LED strip and the
SP board you can just snip these cables
and extend them to be pretty much as
long as you would like okay so with a
little bit of fiddling out the way we've
got all our LED strips set together now
if I have to go into the config here and
click on LED preferences we've got 576
piped into our length which is how many
individual LEDs we have in our massive
strips here so hopefully this is going
to work if I go back click back again
and turn them on
oh wow look at the look at the effects
all of these LEDs right here are being
powered off the USB and that's why
they're quite dim so in this box we have
a standard 5 volt 10 amp power supply
which terminates in a barrel plug now
what I'm going to go ahead and do is
Snip the end off this and bear these
wires so basically with this 5 volt 10
amp power supply I've spliced it into
the positive and negative terminals that
go to the LED strips and to our ESP
board the data line has just been left
as it was before now the beauty of this
is it gives us more power for the LEDs
and also Powers our ESP board without it
being connected to the computer so this
is all set up so obviously you can
control these things via the web
interface but an app is much better so
wled have made one if you click on the
plus button in the top corner and click
on Discover lights it will go ahead and
find all of the extra ESP boards on your
network so as you can see here I've got
my kitchen ceiling which is my
pre-installed ones and our new wleds if
I click the on button you can see that
these turn on now let's go into here
because we need to change some more
settings now that we've added our power
supply go to config go to LED
preferences and then what we want to go
ahead and do is change the milliamp
hours that we have currently available
so through the USB port we have about a
maximum of 850 but with a 10 amp power
supply that's 10 000 milliamps that we
have available now I'm not going to pipe
10 000 in here just because I don't want
to hit this power supplies limit so I'm
going to put in here 8 000 and then I'm
going to go ahead and click save and as
soon as I do that you can see that these
led strips get considerably brighter and
we have a load more power to play with
and you ain't getting anything like that
from the likes of Philips Hue you and
lifx and the kicker in all of this is
this is better and less than half the
price and and we've had fun doing it the
process has been good because it's
rewarding when you spend time doing
something like this and then you get an
end result now it's over to you guys to
send us some pictures of what you do
with your wled installs but for now man
has been Alex this has been awesome and
I'll see you in the next one
peace
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all right
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