No Wi-Fi, No Problem! Setting Up WLED

so in this video I'll be going over how you can easily set up and control LED lights using one of my favorite products from domestic automation as well as your standard esp32 module without having to connect anything to Wi-Fi now to get started I'll first be using this plug-and-play controller that is still the only product I've yet to see on Amazon that comes pre-installed with W LED next I ordered a 5vt 15 amp power supply that you can plug right into the board and as far as the lights I'll be using a roll of ws2812b LEDs for this demo this strip can then get plugged right into the included jst three pin connector on the board next on your phone tablet or computer scan for available Wi-Fi networks and you should see one that says wled dap which is coming from our controller go ahead and connect to this and if it does ask for a password the default one is all lowercase wled 1 2 3 4 you'll automatically be taken to a screen that looks like this now instead of going to Wi-Fi settings where you normally connect this to your home Wi-Fi we can bypass that and stay connected directly to the module Itself by clicking on to the controls from here you're able to control the lights using the W LED software even though we never had to connect it to any Wi-Fi now whether you're wanting to put lights on your bike a motorcycle your car an RV maybe set something up at a festival or a cabin there are many places where connecting things to Wi-Fi might not be possible so it's great to still be able to have options now to get the rest of the lights going let's go into configure and then LED preferences and since the board has a built-in 10 amp fuse for safety I would recommend setting your brightness limiter to no more than 9,000 milliamps to stay under that then I'll scroll down and change the number of LEDs that I have to 150 and I'll skip the first led which will turn off the one light on the board that's there to act as a data booster go ahead and hit save and all the lights should now come on and the other thing to make sure with this specific product from domestic Automation in the event that you ever end up resetting wled under LED preferences scroll down and just make sure that the relay gpio is set to 12 like it is here now if and when you unplug things the process is the exact same as before reconnect to power search for an open network find and connect to the W leed-ap click on to the controls and then you're back in business now if this is your first time hearing about wed feel free to check out a video I did recently going over some of my favorite animations and settings using this program and if you wanted to find out more about this specific controller I did a couple full review and setup videos if you'd like a much more detailed look at this product so moving on let's turn our attention to do the same thing but this time with just an esp32 module and since these don't come pre-installed with wled that's the first thing you need to do which I'll leave a link to a video I already made going over that simple process now I recently came across these thicker 20 gauge jumper wires on Amazon that are perfect for getting things quickly set up I'll need three of these that have one male and one female end I'll first take my red wire and plug it into the VIN pin on the esp32 then I'll take my black cable and insert that into the gnd pin right next to it and finally I'll take the green one and connect it to the D2 pin on the module from here I'll use the same ws2812b lights from before and if you look closely at the J connector you'll see three individual slots where we can insert the male end of the jumper wires that are attached to our ESP device and the colors I used for my wires this means the red will go to the red green to green and then my black gnd cable to the white ground coming from my ESP device now there are many different ways you could go about getting this connected but in my opinion this is probably the quickest and easiest way possible however in my soldering tutorial for beginners video I do go over a couple other options that you can check out if interested and for powering the lights I'll be using a little 5volt 2 Amp phone charger that'll plug directly into the esp32 device like you're seeing here now before moving on I want to thank the sponsor of today's video Aura so this is me signing up for their free 14-day trial and during this setup process one of the many things they do is scan the internet for data Brokers that have your personal information these data Brokers then make a fortune selling your information to spammers scammers and other entities that want to know more about you now Ora was able to find 30 such instances of my personal information being in the hands of these companies then with one click Ora sends out a notice to have my information removed from their systems which they are legally required to do when asked their all-in-one platform offers anti virus protection credit monitoring credit lock financial transaction alerts secure VPN identity protection parental controls 24/7 us-based customer service and much much more I'll leave a link in the description for you to start your own free 14-day trial so please make sure to check them out thank you all so much and now back to the video once it's powered on it's pretty much doing the same thing from our first example search for available networks find and connect to the W leed-ap and then click on to the controls now the one thing you are going to want to do is go into LED preferences and since we are powering the LEDs directly from the board I highly recommend keeping your brightness limiter set to 1,000 milliamps so you don't end up frying the esp32 device I'll then scroll down and change the number of LEDs to 150 and then since we did use the D2 pin on the controller for data make sure you put two in the GPO field click save and you should be all set and finally I was able to do the exact same thing but this time I had it plugged into my file 5 Vol 2 Amp car charger so I hope this video was helpful in showing you just how simple of a process it is to control lights even with no Wi-Fi and I never actually tested how far the max distance you could be away from the ESP and still be able to pick up on the W leed-ap connection but I do know at times I was at least 50 fet away and had no issues at all I'll leave links to everything that I mentioned in the description so make sure to check it out if you wanted to try something similar thank you all so much for watching and as always I hope you have a blessed day

Channel: Chris Maher

Views: 25,945

Keywords: wled controller, getting started wled, wled led strips, wled to esp8266, wled setup, wled esp32, wled for beginners, esp32 board first project, wled easy setup, domestic automation, power supply, easy wled, portable led lights, led lights no wifi, setup led lights with no wifi, wled tutorial, wled controller diy, plug and play led strip lights, chris maher, wled with no wifi, setup leds on car, smart home, led controller no wifi, led controller, wled no wifi

Id: zM-bpcL6uUA

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023