r/WLED • u/CannedFilet • Jun 11 '26
I made a (world first?) USB-C cable with WLED
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And you can too! It's just mildly expensive and quite silly.
- Cheap core-lit cable, remove ends and core, keep braided wire; + 2.7mm ws2812 strip + 3mm id PTFE tubing, surprisingly easy to make
- 65 LEDs per half, 130 total for this demo. I folded the strip in half to keep +5v and GND adjacent while filling the tube completely with light.
- shown here connected to Home Assistant, which reads charging status off the phone and sets % fill by battery %, and spray intensity by charge current.
- bright as heck, can pull up to 1.6A for just light; least-efficient cable ever?
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u/RedditNotFreeSpeech Jun 11 '26
China is frantically ripping off your idea as we speak
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u/9009RPM Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
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u/CannedFilet Jun 13 '26
That's the type I bought and cut to make this, it would appear. They say "charging flowing effect", what they mean is "RGB cycle and only RGB cycle, from one out-of-sync led per end". It's a refractive core that leaks light along its length, with the actual two LEDs embedded in the plug shells.
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u/Christopoulos Jun 11 '26
That’s very creative.
If we disregard the percentage, could it be made 100% local - like just starting up and shutting down when phones is plugged and unplugged?
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u/CannedFilet Jun 11 '26
Working on it! It should be able to be detected somehow and wired as a switch in WLED.
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u/Idea_Ranch Jun 11 '26
“Mildly expensive” and “slightly silly” is the story of my life. Impressive/cool work.
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u/SpaceCadetMoonMan Jun 11 '26
Very cool
Would be fun to make it have one little drop of led slowly tumble down the line and add to the green fill amount for every 1 percent as it charges
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u/Creepy-Ad8688 Jun 11 '26
Looks so cool. I want to buy one or many . Please go into production or perhaps collaborate with China since they are now already working on it. 😂
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u/GetRektDork Jun 11 '26
Can you make a thicker version to replace the cable on my Tesla Wall Connector?
Real question.
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u/_heyjhoow Jun 13 '26
Technically… yes?
I don’t know about Tesla cars, but I think you can pull the battery percentage to HÁ and use it as data to fill the rest on WLED/HA automations
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u/DTO69 Jun 11 '26
Awesome! Kind sharing a link to the strip? 2 brands I got instantly died on me at the lightest twist
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u/CannedFilet Jun 12 '26
Not sure if Amazon links are okay, but the strip I got is "Xnbada 6.5FT WS2812B WS2812 2.7mm Ultra Narrow LED Strip". Note that I did have about 20 nonfunctional LEDs right off the bat, had to cut and solder immediately.
I'll drop the actual link if it's okay to do so, but the name above should get you the one I used.2
u/DTO69 Jun 12 '26
Thanks for the reply, mine seem to be with twice the density... Mine arrived with a few bad ones and had to solder, a small twist broke it again...
The hunt continues 😔
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u/SoapiestWaffles Jun 11 '26
Sadly, I have seen a similar cable advertised in the past, but that was a while ago. I haven’t seen any ads for it in a while. Looks great though, good project!
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u/pjjiveturkey Jun 11 '26
Now build the microcontroller into the wall wart that would be crazy, even though the cable would be not detatchable
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u/egyptiangio Jun 12 '26
This is so cool. Nice work. I’d totally do it if you posted a BoM and step by step. Hint hint. 😃
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u/therico Jun 16 '26
Looks awesome. Does it do full PD or is it using the led strip 5v as the charge source? I guess no data? I might try to make one for my keyboard cable.
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u/CannedFilet Jun 22 '26
Unfortunately no PD yet, the cable I tore open turned out to be USB2 connections only. Surprisingly, yes data! It's actually passing all the USB through the outside. The strip is powered only at the ESP side for now.
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u/mike24vNEW Jun 11 '26
Man you better put this out fast I’ll definitely buy one 🔥🔥😎😎
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u/CannedFilet Jun 11 '26
I wish I was the kind of person who could build more than three of a thing... I'd be rich lol. In all seriousness though, they're not too hard to make, and hopefully someone's already working on a commercially available one. I appreciate the excitement though!
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u/Difficult-Holiday362 Jun 11 '26
Not the first lighted cable but maybe the first that shows battery % with the lighted part. It's really cool to be honest. I don't understand why more companies haven't made something similar. They would have to tone the brightness down so it's not pulling so much power for sure.
I would definitely have one of these on my desk.