I have 15 lights in my strand, and 6 different sizes of lanterns. I wanted them to be in a pleasing layout -- not too close together, not too far apart, with varying heights and sizes.
Cut 15 pieces of ribbon cable in varying lengths. Mine are 6" at the shortest and 34" at the longest, in 2" intervals.
I used a one-inch gridded self-healing cutting mat to lay the wires out and this made the measuring and cutting really easy.
There are a lot of rings, and each ring has 4 connections. That's 60 solder points we'll have to hit. I find that big, tedious tasks like this go much faster and save a lot of precious brain cycles if you do ALL the stripping then ALL the soldering, instead of processing one at a time.
Separate the wires in the ribbon cable at one end. Strip about 1/8" of shielding from all 60 wires.
Solder each ring to a piece of ribbon cable, paying close attention to the order of the wires:
- Striped wire: 5V
- 2nd wire: data OUT
- 3rd wire: data IN
- 4th wire: G
Be 100% consistent here or your whole strand will not work. I found it easiest to solder the striped wire first, then work my way clockwise around the ring: G next (easy to find since it's on the other edge), then IN and OUT fall right into place with no crossed wires.
Cut a long wire for the top of the strand. I'll refer to this as the "power rail".
Find the striped wire. This will be our power wire (+5v) and will attach to all the striped wires coming from the rings.
We only need 3 wires in our power rail, so separate the 4th wire and pull it off the cable. Save it for another project.
The 3rd wire, which is now on the edge, will be our G wire, and the middle wire becomes our data wire. Check the wiring diagram page to see how this works.
Plug your female JST connector into the male connector on the Feather, so you can be sure which wire should go where. Connect the female JST connector to your power rail as shown: red / USB to the striped wire, green/data to the middle wire, and G to the 3rd wire.
This is now the IN end. Keep it on the left as you work.
Stretch out your 3-wire power rail on the floor and arrange the lanterns below it. Lay out your wires and and trim any that are too long.
My lanterns do not have mathematically even spacing, since the sizes are so different - a more random layout looks better. In order to mark the spots where the lanterns attach, I pulled the 3 wires on the power rail apart by about an inch at each spot where a lantern will go. Now I can pick up my power rail to work on it and still be sure of my spacing.
Starting with your first lantern, Cut the middle wire and strip about 1/4" of shielding off each side. The left wire is where the data comes IN and the right side wire is where the data will travel OUT to the next lantern.
Keep the power and ground wires intact, but cut through just the shielding and pull it back a bit to expose a little of each of the wires. This makes our splicing job a little easier and keeps more power running through the project, since the wires remain unbroken through the whole length of the strand.
Grab your first lantern ring. Separate the wires and slide a piece of heat shrink onto each one. I also added a large piece of heat shrink to cover all 4 connections and make the joint look tidy afterwards.
Now, make your connections. Twist the striped wire from the ring around the bare patch of striped wire on your power rail. Then do the same with the 3rd (G) wire -- it will connect to the 4th wire on the ring.
Connect the next wire over (going to IN on the ring) to the cut wire on the left, and the remaining wire (coming from OUT on the ring) to the cut wire on the right. Solder all 4 connections.
Time to test! Plug in your Feather and the power supply, click the switch if needed, and make sure the lights come on. If they did, congratulations! Solder on, my friend.
Keeping the wires straight is tricky business -- it's really easy to solder things up wrong. I made sure to keep the IN end of the power rail on my left the whole time, so I could always be assured of which side was IN and which was OUT.
If the lights don't come on, or are doing something unexpected, here are a few troubleshooting tips. Get this first one fixed before moving on to the rest.
Troubleshooting
If your lights didn't come on, here are a few things to try:
- Flip your on/off switch. Was it just turned off?
- Head back to WLED and check your pinout configuration under LED Preferences. Be sure your data wire is connected to pin 12, and that you've told WLED it's on 12.
- Check your wiring! This is a bit of a complicated mess until you get the flow right and it's really easy to cross-wire something. Trace your wires, and be sure power is going to the striped wire everywhere, and that IN on the ring is connected to the wire that leads to the Feather's pin 12.
- Try re-uploading the WLED software
- Make sure you're on the correct WiFi network - if you're on a different network you won't see the WLED connection
- Check further down the line and be sure nothing is shorting out. I stripped some wires further down in anticipation, and they touched together and shorted out my project, making testing VERY difficult.
Open the paper lanterns. Each one will have a wire frame inside that holds the lantern open.
I used a zip tie to secure the ring to the frame right at the top of the lantern.
These little lanterns rip easily, and the strand can get pretty tangled up. I found it easiest to hang the strand with the metal frames attached, and then add the lanterns once everything was in place and ready to go.
Page last edited March 20, 2024
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