Hey everyone. New to the Pi but hoping to learn as I go along!
I thought I’d plug a USB LED strip I had into my Picade, with the intention of using it to create a lit marqee. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be drawing enough power. The LEDs blink on/off and the Picade doesn’t boot at all.
The 50cm LED strip is much like this one.
I presume the Picade hat and LCD screen are consuming too much power? Is there a way to power a strip of LEDs as well as the essiential Picade componants?
You’ll likely have to cut it down to less LED’s. How many I don’t know? A dozen LED’s maybe?
Ahh I see. Thanks for that, I’ll give it a go. :)
What model Pi is it? Raspberry Pi’s have a ploy fuse that limits the maximum current that can be drawn via the USB ports. With exception of the Pi Zero and the new 4B, which don’t have poly fuses.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#pi-power
After that your limited by what your power supply can provide, minus what the picade uses. Thats probably not a whole lot, maybe 1 amp?
What Picade board do you have? I think some of them can drive Neopixels, which is probably what’s on your strip.
I’m running a 3b+. It’s a PicadeX, bought last Christmas. It has a hack header on it? Could I connect the LEDs to that somehow?
If they are neopixels you could likely wire them up to hacker header. Have a look at this
Or maybe the plasma header, if you could figure out its pinout. Phil @gadgetoid may be able to help and tell you how many LEDs you can use?