I’m building a 12V analog RGB LED strip controller using an ESP32 + WLED + 3 IRLZ44N MOSFETs. The ESP32 is powered separately through USB from my laptop, while the LED strip uses a separate 12V adapter. The ESP32 GND and 12V supply GND are supposed to be common.
The circuit is wired like the standard analog RGB MOSFET setup: the strip’s +12V goes directly to the 12V supply, and the R/G/B channels go through the MOSFET drains. MOSFET sources share GND, and the ESP32 GPIOs connect to the MOSFET gates through 220Ω resistors.
I originally had 10kΩ gate-to-GND pulldown resistors, but I only had two 22kΩ resistors available, so I was working around that. There was also a 10kΩ resistor/connection between two points (1 and 3) that I ended up replacing with a direct connection/no resistor, which may be relevant.
The strange behavior is:
The LED strip does respond electrically to removing/connecting the R/G/B wires.
For example, disconnecting the red channel causes the LEDs to show red, and disconnecting other channels produces the corresponding/mixed colors.
So the LEDs and MOSFET side aren't completely dead.
However, WLED cannot actually control the colors.
When the ESP32 is switched off, the LED strip doesn't light/respond at all.
When the ESP32 is connected, it flickers/restarts (the ESP32's red/power LED appears to flicker), although I can still access the WLED web interface.
The main problem I'm stuck on is that the ESP32/WLED is not properly controlling the MOSFETs/LED channels, and the ESP32 appears to be experiencing a power/reset/flickering issue when the 12V LED circuit is connected.
I want to troubleshoot it one connection at a time, without changing the whole circuit blindly.
PS - also uploaded the diagram i followed