Ws2812 in series

[esapode688]

I'm Using a teensy 3.1 and 22 Ws2812 strips along with octows to build a mobile display.

60 amps at 5 volts are really a lot and require big DC/DC

Anyone tried putting the strip in series in order to power them at: 12-15-20 volt ?

Will this affect the data line as well ?

 

[MichaelMeissner]

Ummm, ws2812's have rather specific power levels. According to the datasheet that Adafruit posts for their brand of ws2812's (neopixels), the safe voltage is 3.5v to 5.5v. You probably would fry the leds if you gave them more than 6v or so.

 

[potatotron]

I don't think running the strips in series is workable, it seems like it would be hard to get a consistent voltage drop across the strips, for example if strip #1 is 100% on and strip #2 is 10% on then how do you get them to each use the same voltage?

The WS2812s are pretty bright. Maybe you can run them at 50% or 25% max brightness? The difference between 127,127,127 pixels and 255,255,255 ones isn't as huge as it looks due to the nonlinear nature of how we see.