LED Strip Question

[karljohnson33]

Does anyone know if a bad ws2811 pixel can cause the rest of the strip to fail? I have one led strip on my mega tree that only works about a quarter of the way through. Then, the rest of the leds are blank. Is it possible that cutting out the first blank pixel will fix the rest of the strip? Thanks.

[Ebuechner]

Yes One Bad Apple can spoil the whole bunch.
The problem with the pixels is the one that's out isn't necessarily the one that's bad.
The one that's ahead of the one that isn't working might not be sending data.

So when doing your repair replace the first one that isn't working and the last working one so you know you got the problem the first time.

[keithsw1111]

There are also software configuration issues that can cause that problem. We have all cut lights out thinking they were bad only to realise we screwed up at the software end.

[Ebuechner]

Yeah, been there done that.
Put the controller in test mode.
Plug the bad strip into an output that you know is working fine.