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Farbwerk Rev. 2 issue: not able to handle more than 2 led strips // channels

Donnerstag, 25. Februar 2016, 20:26

Hi everyone, I'll get straight to the point. I own a Farbwerk rev. 2 with bluetooth, usb and aquabus interface. I've tried to connect it through both USB and Aquabus, and the device is recongnized and everything seems fine.

The only problem is that after I added more than 2 separate LED strips out of 4, the 3rd won't be recongnized. As I have 3 meters of IP65 LEDs, and 4 led cables for the 4 channels I've tried every possible combination of cables and leds strips.
NO WAY, NO WAY. I've tried to use different molex rails, different cables, outputs, channels, software resets.. I swapped every possible setting twice, both with cabling and power source: no matter what, that bastard will only light up 2 strips maximum at a time.
The only really strange thing I noticed, if can help, is that tried to swap the 4 pin channels that go into the farbwerk, I sometimes get only the blue channel.
So resuming, only 2 channels out of 4 (no matter what leds or cables) seem to work, sometimes the additional only show the Blue channel. I refuse to believe this a faulty or broken unit.... It just behaves in very strange way, believe me I've cheked those connections 10 times before writing this post.
Hope someone can help, this thing is really really anoying :thumbdown: :?:

Dieser Beitrag wurde bereits 1 mal editiert, zuletzt von »correzzana« (25. Februar 2016, 20:27)

Donnerstag, 25. Februar 2016, 21:54

If I recall correctly, if the LEDs show as BLUE, that means the wiring isn't connected properly. Also, you might have maxed out the farbwerk with the first two strips.

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 09:39

What are the specs of the strips. What is each strip's length? I'm with jack in that you're probably pulling too much.

Dieser Beitrag wurde bereits 3 mal editiert, zuletzt von »Railgun« (26. Februar 2016, 09:56)

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 11:59

First, thanks everyone for your answers
That was the first thing I thought ! As I have a 4 x molex cable coming from my PSU that was powering an Aquaero 6XT, a D5 USB pump, a Poweradjust 3 and the Farbwerk I thought all the devices were sucking too much on a single rail.
So I took another molex straight from PSU dedicated just to the farbwerk... Same thing again.
BTW I have just hooked up 2 x 30 cm strips, and it seems quite strange to me I'm maxxing it out.. The specs say:
Maximum current per channel: 2,5 A
Maximum combined current (all channels): 8 A (resulting in a maximum total power of 96 Watts at 12 Volts)

And those seem like really huuuge numbers to me, I thought it could handle 4x 1 meter strips at least. At the end I think my system would probably fine with those, but I had some extra cables and lights (were quite cheap) for a future project and just wanted to do some general testing.
I will try to lower the brightness on the 2 stripes, maybe it can help the third but I'm not sure.
Any other Farbwerk users: HOW MANY STRIPS YOU'VE LINKED ON YOURS ?

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 12:22

Keep in mind, it's 2.5A per color channel TOTAL, across all four ports, not per port. You have four ports, and across those four ports you have 2.5A of red, 2.5A of green, etc.

It's not how you're powering it via the PSU. In most cases, that will never be an issue. It's how much load the farbwerk itself can handle.

Again, what are the specs of the strips you have. Make, model, length, etc...

While 2.5A does seem like a lot, it's not hard to even have three LEDs that can pull that kind of current.

4 meters of strips is a lot of light.

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 12:28

Make sure those 3rd party LEDs are 5050 RGBs.

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 14:24

Sorry I didn't specified I'm using 2 x 1 meter Aquacomputer IP65 black strips !

So everything's original, I wouldn't have bought other 3rd party LEDs (support which is always nice btw) as those AC strips look high quality and have maximum compatibility.
Yeah 4 meters of lenght was just an exaggeration, that's so much. But 2 x 30 cm seems like really a low margin.. Why even bothering to put 4 channels if it can just power way less ?


I think it would be very intresting to have other Farbwerk users feedback at this point :wacko:

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 15:15

Ahh. Yeah, there should be no issues there. I use 3x 30cm Phobya strips with no issue. I had four, but after I redid my case, I just never put the fourth back. No issues there with it.

What kind of troubleshooting did you do? I assume took one that you know works and move it to the other channels? Take one that didn't work, and move it to a channel that did work? Regardless of where they are, only two will light? If so, that sounds like a farbwerk issue then.

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 18:51

Check the wiring. Sometimes it can get tricky. I had to connect some of then solderless cables opposite from one and other because the "bite" wasn't strong enough on some of the LEDs and I had to flip it to make it make contact, therefore I had to flip the cable connection on the farbwerk to match the "colors" if you will.

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 22:19

Hi guys, I finally solved it :thumbsup:


As I strongly believed it wasn't the farbwerk, and neither a power supply / molex or cables matter. It was actually related to the connection between the strip and the clamp.. Ultimately it was caused by the "IP65" specification, as those strips are thicker and different to regular ones.
After playing again with everything and doing troubleshooting as I already did before, and as Railgun suggested too, for a couple of hours I found out the 4 "flat pins" of the stripes weren't making not enough contact with the cables clamp and pins. I just thought it was something else cause I was actually really "lucky or unlucky" that the first 2 strips went in good... I just couldn't make an enough good contact with the others no matter how many times I tried.. That's why I also said I could only see the blu channel on, it was sometimes the only one to make contact.
At the end I decided to just leave the farbwerk ON, and turning swapping led strips(I know it's not the professional way :whistling: ) and just let the contacts touch and applying different pressures. I noticed that sometimes only some channels were linked, and by pressing with the fingers the clamps at the end of the cable the channels were connecting changed. And then everything was clear.
The fact is that IP65 have that "rubber/gum/transparent" coating which gets also in the game. The most ridiculous thing is that about a week ago I watched a video on YouTube from Singularity Computers, and for casualty he was installing IP65s on a farbwerk and told it was very tricky at first to figure out how to make good contact.. He suggested to peel and cut off a bit of coating (obviously without cutting the rails) from the end of the stripes were the contacts are to let those link better. That's what I did from the beginning and it sure helped as the first two were just working with this technique.
Sorry for the lenght, but I hope this thread will help out somebody in the future. On the web there's minus than zero images,manuals or guides on how the hell to link those stripes.


As GTXJackBauer said, it was all a question of bite!!! :thumbup: And if I probably seen your last answer first I could have saved sometime... But at the end I figured out myself and learned something. I also flipped switched the contacts as JackBauer said... There's only one important thing at the end... THAT THOSE 4 CHANNELS MAKE A GOOD CONTACT

Dieser Beitrag wurde bereits 1 mal editiert, zuletzt von »correzzana« (26. Februar 2016, 22:23)

Freitag, 26. Februar 2016, 22:45

The IP65 are thinner than their thicker IP67 counterpart. I use about 150cm+ spread out on all 4 channels. Some channels might be longer than others but all are within spec. I had to flip the connector to get some of them properly seated because of the protective layer the IP65 has. The IP67 is even thicker and would have to be totally removed to make a connection, last I heard and so I stuck with the IP65 for that reason and the fact that the lighting is a tad different because the IP67 gives it more of a defuse look where IP65 is more of a spot.

Nonetheless, glad it all worked out.

Dieser Beitrag wurde bereits 1 mal editiert, zuletzt von »GTXJackBauer« (26. Februar 2016, 22:48)

Samstag, 27. Februar 2016, 01:19

I watched a video on YouTube from Singularity Computers, and for casualty he was installing IP65s on a farbwerk and told it was very tricky

And that happens when you use the wrong type of cable like he did in the video... :wacko: There are special IP65 connector cables. They have a larger housing for the rubber coating and instead of the clamps they have spiky parts that bite into the contacts of the strip. There is no need to modify anything on the strip.