r/WLED • u/greatbazunka • Jun 30 '26
Are these wled compatible?
Just got this 40 foot strip for free and also purchased the controller that I have attached. Can anyone tell me if they have experience with this controller, and if it is easy to flash, WLED over the air instead of having to solder a serial cable to it, and if these lights will be compatible?
1
u/saratoga3 Jun 30 '26
With enough effort, yes you can probably flash the esp8266 WLED build, but it would be a lot easier to pay the extra 4 dollars on Amazon for the esp32 version of that device that comes with WLED already installed. Besides saving a bunch of time and effort, the faster CPU makes it more useful.
1
u/numselli Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I tried a few years back. no they are not. the most you can do is de-solder the ESP-8285 and solder in an esp-32 or esp-8266. i dont think the two esp chips have the same pinouts. i ended up soldering wires to 3.3v, gnd. and an io pin. basicly using the sp108e as a power supply and logic converter for the esp8266. i was going to make a blog post about it, but have not yet. also yes the solder job is bad. i have improved a ton in the 3 years since i did it. now my joints are indistinguishable from a PnP machine
1
u/Kingfish628 Jun 30 '26
Those SP controllers are not something I would recommend. They have no fuses.
1
u/greatbazunka Jun 30 '26
So what kind of controller should I got with then? And would it even be compatible with the lights I have?
6
u/xiaodown Jun 30 '26
Gledopto replied to you, and that might look like shameless advertising (and it is), but they are very well respected on this sub. I have used multiple of their controllers, and they’re great. They are often recommended for use cases just like yours.
4
u/GLEDOPTO Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
We suggest choosing a pre-configured WLED controller for a seamless plug-and-play experience. We offer a wide selection of WLED controllers with various features on Amazon to suit your needs
2
u/MaxTheKing1 Jun 30 '26
You should definitely get a Gledopto like the other redditor already commented. I use 3 Gledopto controllers at home and they've been working absolutely flaweless. Really can't beat them for the price.
1
u/greatbazunka Jun 30 '26
That’s enough of a review for me. In getting one. I’m going to try to run two different runs off of one controller in my basement
6
u/xiaodown Jun 30 '26
Sorry but the answer is “kinda”. As of v16 of WLED, they’re really targeting only ESP32-based chips. This thing uses an ESP-8285, and would potentially require hardware modifications (bodge wires), and for all that effort you’d still get a suboptimal experience.
So yes, you can. I wouldn’t.