MQTT LED Strips

Hardware

After watching BRUH Automation’s video for his MQTT controlled LED strips I decided to make some of my own. I didn’t want to install any outside (yet) so I decided that accent lighting above my kitchen cabinets would be a good place.

I designed a 3d printed enclosure to house the NodeMCU, buck converter, logic level shifter, and molex connector. The wires going to the connector are +12V, ground, and the PWM control out to the WS2811 LED strips. You can see the buck converter that takes the 12V input and converts it to 5V output underneath the NodeMCU. To the right you can see the logic level shifter that converts the 3.3V logic output from the NodeMCU to 5V so I don’t have to worry about any voltage drop in the setup.

The entire thing is powered from a 10A 12V power supply. The WS2811 LEDs are diffuse enough to where they could be installed on top of the cabinets without any need for channeling or diffusers. I used some 2-conductor wire to inject power in several places along the LED strip run to avoid voltage drop. I did run into an issue where I had to extend the wires between one set of LEDs and the next which required a DMX amp to overcome the voltage drop this extra wire caused.

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Hardware Used