Teensy and 12v LEDs

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gomer23

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Hello, I am starting with my second Teensy for an LED project. I have one working right now using a Teensy 3.2 and 5v LEDs. I am about to start wiring up my 12v LED setup. I will be powering the LEDs (WS2811) externally with a 12v power supply. The Teensy will be powered over USB from the computer driving the display. My question is with the grounds. So I need to use the LED strip ground pin for the LED 12v power. I also would need to wire the teensy signal ground to that as well. I am pretty sure that would be okay but I wanted to double check on this before finishing my plans for this project.
Thanks!
 
It depends on the power supplies. If both have their power output returns connected to safety ground then some of that LED current is going to want to take the route of your ground connection between LED strip and Teensy.

There should be exactly one connection between the grounds of the two systems.
 
Thank you for the reply. So what would be the smarter or correct way to wire this up. Would it be to get a buck converter to convert the 12v from the power supply down to 5v to power the teensy? Thanks again for the assist.
 
I have a RGB LED strip demo with STM32 dev board, using DC12V power input for LED and a small 5V converter board for MCU, this works well.
Note that you'd better use a high quality 5V converter chip, some cheap garbage may cause strange unstable errors.
 
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