P2 control WS2812B

ChristmasInKaralee

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It doesn't say in the documentation but can the P2 control the WS2812B light string?

What's the difference between the WS2811 and WS2812B?

Thanks
 

fasteddy

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The 2811 and 2812b use the exact same protocol.

The difference between the 2811 is that this is used for 12vdc applications and is a seperate chip. The 2812b is basically the 2811 chip embedded into the LED package and is 5vdc

So the 2811 code in the controller will work with the 2812b
 

Devo

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There are actually some discrete differences between the 2811/12/12b protocols in terms of the timing such that it prevents the 2811 protocol from driving 2812 or 2812b chips properly. However, the 2812b protocol will actually drive the 2812 and 2811 chips fine...another quirky China thing :p To complicate things further, there are also fast and slow versions of the 2811 protocol. But basically as long as the controller supports the 2812b timing protocol, it should be able to control all 3 chip types.
 

fasteddy

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Devo said:
There are actually some discrete differences between the 2811/12/12b protocols in terms of the timing such that it prevents the 2811 protocol from driving 2812 or 2812b chips properly. However, the 2812b protocol will actually drive the 2812 and 2811 chips fine...another quirky China thing :p To complicate things further, there are also fast and slow versions of the 2811 protocol. But basically as long as the controller supports the 2812b timing protocol, it should be able to control all 3 chip types.

But in terms of these difference it seems controllers use either the 2811 or 2812b and dont offer both because the differences are minimal in most cases. But as you touched on there are some variations but for the vast majority of applications this will not be an issue.
In the early days before the 2811 was officially supported by many controllers they would run using the 1804 protocol
 

Devo

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I don't know about other manufacturers and how they handle it, but once we discovered that the 2812b protocol will also drive the 2811 and 2812 chips (but not necessarily vice versa) we just used that protocol to drive all 3. Offering it in 2 different speeds also accommodates the fast and slow variations.
 

fasteddy

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I think the same has been done for the other controllers, one code that supports the variations. But in terms of the end user they are the same as far as the selection in the controller goes.
Im not sure off the top of my head which one is the main stream, but one of them (slow or fast) is not very common.

But as with all things Chinese there are varying standards
 

ChristmasInKaralee

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So will that mean I can use the P2 fully populated with WS2812B without any issues with timing etc. I am looking at doing a matrix and will run two P2's fully populated with the WS2812B 30/m 5V strips from Raywu.

Thanks
 

ChristmasInKaralee

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Ok I know this is a J1SYS page but I have just noticed the new Pixelite 4 board that does the same number of pixels as 2 x P2's and is cheaper. Does anyone see any issues with this controller with the WS2812B and matrix setup.

Cheers
 

Devo

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Yes PixLite 4 supports 2812B (PixLite 4 supports exactly the same protocols as PixLite 16).
 
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