74 LED WS2812B strip is flickering when connected to ESP8266 with Wi-Fi enabled

[krzychb]

I have been testing Fire2012.ino sketch with latest FastLED library (saved directly from GitHub) using WS2812B strip with 74 and 144 LEDs together with ESP8266.

Fire2012.ino works as expected when Wi-Fi of ESP8266 is off.
If Wi-Fi is on, the strip is flickering 😞

Has anybody tested ESP8266 in similar scenario? Do I miss something in configuration?
ESP8266 is all about Wi-Fi and I would like to set Fire2012 parameters (brightness, cooling and sparking) wirelessly.

I do not observe flickering for Fire2012.ino sketch when implemented with Adafruit_NeoPixel and NeoPixelBus libraries.

Here are my test sketches:
• EspNeoPixelBus
• EspAdafruit_NeoPixel
• EspFastLED

I really appreciate mature, feature rich and well documented code of FastLED and looking how to use it directly with ESP8266 without patching it with additional code.

Krzysztof

[msurguy]

Try adding FastLED.delay(1000 / FRAMES_PER_SECOND); under this line https://github.com/krzychb/EspFire2012/blob/master/EspFastLED/Fire.ino#L109 instead of doing manual delay via millis.

[focalintent]

@msurguy the problem with that is it then blocks the handling of wifi responses in a timely fashion.

@krzychb - what happens if you add #define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0 to the line immediately before you have #include <FastLED.h> - FastLED is different from the other libraries in that it allows interrupts to fire while processing WS2812 leds - however, if an interrupt takes too long to run, then it has to stop writing out the current flame.

Out of curiosity - where are you seeing flickering - is it at the beginning of the strip, the end of the strip, or across the entire strip?

(Note: I just ran an installation using esp8266's with 150 led tm1809 (similar timing issues as ws2812) with wifi on with no problems - and i was using wifi as both a heartbeat sync and to broadcast OSC data to nearly a dozen esp8266's).

[krzychb]

Thanks, @focalintent!

Sure enough, adding #define FASTLED_ALLOW_INTERRUPTS 0 resolved the issue 😄 👍
Flickering occurred towards the end of the strip - plese see this video

Thank you again for quick help 👍

Krzysztof

[Lightning303]

Seems like same issue as i had. Just a heads up. Not allowing interrupts will result in watchdog resets. On my project, roughly 1 reset every 5-10 minutes.

[focalintent]

Ok - yeah, what's happening here is the interrupts firing are cutting off the writing out of the frame data.

If you're hitting watchdog resets, grab the latest version of the code and try re-allowing interrupts - I did some timing adjustments on the retries (and upped the number of retry attempts).

[krzychb]

@Lightning303,

I just run about 100 min testing of Fire2012 on ESP8266 with simple web server enabled (to set up fire simulation parameters) using latest FastLED code from GitHub - 1b546b3

I am happy to confirm that I do not see any watchdog resets.

[TheAustrian]

@krzychb You might want to let it run over night to be on the safe side, i had wdt resets after about 12 to 36 hours with bitbanging and wifi but haven't tried the latest version yet.

[Lightning303]

I will definitely give the latest changes a try when i find some time. However you have to take into consideration that there might be a difference between having a webserver idling and a project where there is constant traffic. In mine i send 8 byte packages to my esp 24-60 times a second.

[krzychb]

@TheAustrian
This is very good point 😄
I have just set up a channel on ThingSpeak to monitor EspFastLed up time
Let's see if it will cut the mustard.

@Lightning303
My application is simple.
The more code and traffic, the more effort is required for successful debugging and stress testing.
I believe you will soon nail down the issue and identify the root cause!
Good luck 👍

[pi-ratte]

I just tested the latest github and it looks like the interupts are causing flickering for me.
My setup is im sending artnet to the ESP8266 (huzzah).
if i do a RGB walk over the leds:
interupts enabled = the leds behind the one lighting up flicker. so as the RGB walk runs the flickers get less as the walk gets to the end.
interupts disabled = no flicker, im yield()'ing right before and after FastLED.show() was running for an hour will test some more. And only calling show() when there is actually new LED info. (640 Leds configured)

[pi-ratte]

Ohh forgot to wrote im using WS2812B leds.. also without interupts it reset on me :( .
with interupts on i noticed if making fat white/black bars, it flickers white bars the same size down the line. nut zust random colors.
if i set #define FASTLED_INTERRUPT_RETRY_COUNT 0
the flicker is gone.