Running sample with a single LED about apa102-pi

[tinue]

The code is fine, it does light one LED on my strip. Since this is just one LED, I would start by wiring it directly to the Pi. Get 5V from the Pi GPIO header, and directly connect clock and data to the 3.3V pins of the Pi: It often does work without a level shifter.

I hope you did enable SPI using raspi-config.

Let me know if this works!

[irtemed88]

Hi @tinue - Thanks for the quick reply and for validating the code isn't the issue. I have SPI enabled.

I took the level shifter out of the circuit, swapped to a different LED, and it almost works.

The first time I run my code the light now will turn on. The light is not the correct color and when sample.py completes the light remains on. Subsequent executions of sample.py have no effect unless I manually unplug both VCC and GND. After resetting VCC and GND manually I can run the script again and the light will turn on (albeit still with the wrong color). I changed the "order" property to "bgr" since that's what the docs for my LED say: http://www.led-color.com/upload/201604/APA102-2020%20SMD%20LED.pdf

I have a feeling maybe my solder points aren't well done which is causing strange behavior. I'm going to try a few more LEDs to ensure that isn't the issue.

[irtemed88]

Turns out the issue was the soldering. Thank you for your time helping me debug! I guess this is why I mostly stick with software 😅

Feel free to close this issue.

[tinue]

Thanks for your feedback!