H801 brightness level is not high enough

[xoseperez]

Originally reported by: Pete (Bitbucket: xbmcnut, GitHub: xbmcnut)

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Hi there,

Love your work. Just flashed H801 with 1.8.1 (modified for RGB only) and when I replaced my MiLight LED controller, the wife immediately complained that the lights weren't bright enough. After growling a fair bit, I pulled it out yesterday and ran it in my lab with 12.8VDC. I noticed on power up that the output I was monitoring (blue) goes to 12.2 volts on boot but then settles to 8.23 volts after 0.5s. Sending 0,0,255 to max out the blue channel reveals the same; 8.23 volts blue, 1 volt green, 0 volts red.

Is there a way to increase this in code or is this somehow hardware related? Can anyone else measure the voltage output?

[xoseperez]

Do you think it's a firmware issue? Have you had the chance to test the H801 before flashing ESPurna on it?

[xoseperez]

Original comment by Pete (Bitbucket: xbmcnut, GitHub: xbmcnut):

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Sorry, no. I did not test prior to flashing. It is odd though that the voltage goes to max on boot then settles down around 70% a few milliseconds later.

[xoseperez]

Original comment by azer (Bitbucket: zerros, GitHub: zerros):

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Sorry for my bad english.

Hi, I'm have the same problem. I have 2 H801. One is flashed with h801-debug and ythe other one has the origin firmware.
I will test the original as soon as possible and make some measures.

EDIT:
Ok, i have ~10.10v on the white leds (RGBWW led strip). If I send this to the board (http://ledtv.zerros.lan/api/color?apikey=xxxxx&value=255,255,255"),
it respond me #FFFFFF

But the leds do not shine as brightly as at startup when I plug the power. When I plug the power, all the leds are shining (even if the default switch status is off), and I have 0V everywhere.

My power supply is a 12v 3a

** Second EDIT**
With the original firmware, the white led shine much more, and the value is 0V ??? I can't explain that ...

[xoseperez]

These are common anode LED strips, so when at full power the voltage between a color channel and ground will be 0. That's OK.
But that does not explain why 1) they seem to be not as bright and 2) they are ON even if the switch status is OFF...

[xoseperez]

Original comment by azer (Bitbucket: zerros, GitHub: zerros):

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I'll try to make a small video on youtube or gdrive of the two h801 boxes.

[xoseperez]

Original comment by azer (Bitbucket: zerros, GitHub: zerros):

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Hi, sorry for the time. I've done a video shared on youtube:
https://youtu.be/XlLtqhrP-FY

The controller is running espurna 1.8.3. We can see that the led strip is ON at boot but the boot switch is "Always OFF", but the brightness is FULL.
When I click on "power on" switch, the brightness decrease.

Hope that this video can illustrate the problem.

[xoseperez]

Tested with the multimeter using latest ESPurna release and all channels look OK. Mind they are common anode so measure the voltage.

[xoseperez]

Removing milestone: 1.8.4 (automated comment)

[xoseperez]

Version 1.9.1 solves the issue in the boot status of the lights. The only cause of the drop in the voltage after 0.5s might be the trigger of saving data to the EEPROM (see #191).

[xoseperez]

Apparently Espressif SDK has some limitations on PWM: https://github.com/StefanBruens/ESP8266_new_pwm

[xoseperez]

ESP8266_new_pwm is now in the dev branch. It reaches 100% duty cycle and also fixes the flickering when saving to EEPROM. Will be released on 1.9.8 soon

[xoseperez]

Released with 1.9.8

[xoseperez]

Removing milestone: 1.9.8 (automated comment)