Electronic – arduino – Running 20 WS2812 LED strips (80 pixels each) from a single Arduino and 24V Power Supply with Buck Converters

arduinobuckledled stripws2812b

I am building a matrix with 20 WS2812 LED Strips. Each strip is 80 pixels for a total of 1600 pixels. I want to drive them all from a single Arduino Mega board. To handle the power needs, I have a 24V 15A power source that I then run to 5 buck converters that each power 4 strips.

The data wire runs through all 20 strips but every 4 strips the power is connected to a separate buck converter.

Currently it works but there is flickering across the strips. I'm not sure how to diagnose or fix the problem.

Is this the right way to try to power a large array of pixels?

Thanks for the help, I'm a computer science guy trying to pick up the EE side and am still relatively inexperienced so any help or guidance is very appreciated.

****** UPDATE*****
I've made some progress here. I am now using 4 digital outputs on the arduino. Each output connects to a set of 4 LED strips which is also connected to a buck converter. That eliminates the flickering. So I think it had to do with the data line running through the LED's but the power coming in from the arduino and them not being in sync (at least that's my current hypothesis).

Best Answer

Each pixel draws 60mA 4 strips of 80 pixels is 320 pixels at 60mA equals to 19.2A What buck converter are you using? You could have a power issue.