FAQ
Yes, now preassembled shields is available from Tindie store. Shield with relay and Mini shield.
All my intend was to help WLED community with affordable DIY solution. Especially for the beginners. You can order PCB and parts very cheap. Talk to your friends DIYers and assemble few PCBs for yourself and friends - have fun. People doing classes for the assembly and fun. Old people who never hold soldering iron in their hands. Participate Discord channel or Discourse group and you find people from all around the world who already did their shields or think about it.
To find out what fuse is suitable for you, you need to find out the maximum power consumption of your LED strip. For reference you can use this chart or you can find out by setting the color to white and measure with a multimeter.
Do it like this:
Or better: Look into the manual of your multimeter.
Now you should see the amps on your multimeter. Make sure that the color is set to white and brightness is set to maximum. Take smallest possible fuse, but higher than the number on your multimeter.
For example when your multimeter says 1.6A the next smallest fuse i can find on Digikey is 2A. And so you go on.
If you are not sure about something feel free to ask.
With the bare minimum shield you can only connect to a 5V power supply and 5V LED strip. Missed features are:
❌ 5V or 12V power selector. With selector you can use 12V LED strips.
❌ I2C Sensors
❌ OLED display
❌ Buttons
❌ Additional input for sound reactive fork, or add-on boards
If you add the option Button and you have a problem with operating button. Solder jumper JP3 and add resistor R1. J-R1 are the two pads with small gap.
Usually you can skip it. In this case you have to solder jumper J-R2. But some LED strips behave strange without it. Resistor is reducing ringing effect. For old WS2812 (not B) it's recommended to have one.
The maximum load you can connect is 10A as relay is rated 10A.