The only thing you will need to check in addition to this, is whether the ESP pin is actually capable of driving the MOSFET directly, you might need an optoisolator in there or something in order to prevent the GPIO pin being overdriven - check the drive requirements for the MOSFET.
Thank you for your input.
I checked the info from nodemcu and all gpio ports allow PWM outputs, which is great. Although this also may be happening with h801, I would need to check the code from the controller to be certain.
Does the developer allow access to the controller code?
Being a pwm pin is not related to whether the pin is powerful enough to drive a mosfet directly. That’s what you need to check - how many mA it can supply and that the mosfet needs
Thank you, that is very helpful and I have been doing a bit of reading up on how to make this work. After doing some more reading, I was thinking just a relay that closes the circuit on the J3 jumper when the capacitive button goes high would work, but does J3 require more than just a closed circuit in order to act as a physical switch and needs 3V3 voltage? I didn’t think about being able to take the output directly from the switch because of the high vs low output (which I have read about since then 
), but the adafruit component that I mentioned takes input of 1.8V to 5.5V so I could just power it off of the H801 and then use the output directly with the J3, debouncing as necessary?
And good point on debouncing… I had never thought of this concept in terms of electrical output, but I’m familiar with it from my work as a developer.
A capacitor serves as a decent hardware debouncer if you need it. I think the J3 jumper takes momentary closed contacts in order to switch the device (though I have never used it myself), hence the switch should be fine.
The point I was trying to make is that you can either use a relay (or better an optoisolator) in order to connect the J3 jumper pins, or if the voltages are correctly tied then you might be able to connect straight from the debounced switch to the correct pin of J3. I say might, because of the following:
J3 is two contacts, and will either be
- 1 contact of 3V3 and 1 contact connected to the ESP pin
OR - 1 contact of GND and 1 contact connected to the ESP pin
If the PCB is designed like the first option, then touching the pins together effectively applies 3V3 to the ESP, and this 3V3 could easily come directly from the capacitative switch - hence not needing a optoisolator.
If the ESP pin is normally high (i.e. option 2 above where connecting J3 together grounds the ESP pin)) then you will need an opto.
Thanks!! I’ll read up on optoisolators as well!
How can I test whether it’s scenario 1 or 2? Multimeter between the two pins to see if voltage measures when I connect it?
I have 3 H801’s controlling RGB strips. I’ve been experimenting with Core to synch them together. Have the On/Off control synchronized and the level synchronized but cannot synch the color change.
Before using Core, I tried Trend Setter and Colour CoOrdinator (?) without success. Could you elaborate on how you synch’d your H801’s?
Is there a way to switch the wifi settings the AL-LC02 is using? I have one currently setup and working, but I need to move it over to a different network.
@drewsonian Connect the two pins together and measure the voltage between the two pins and ground. If it is high (3V3) then you have option 1. If it is 0V then it is option 2.
Hi,
I’d like to try one of these “H801 RGBW LED Strip Wifi Controllers” but I am not sure which type of LED strip I can connect to it.
For example , I found this one :
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/5M-600-leds-5050-Double-Row-RGB-white-warm-white-LED-strip-Light-DC12V-new/239549_32824881325.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.5bdadf472B8g71
but it is ordered: blue, red, green, vcc (from its photo)
on the controller (from photos) , I see that the order is : blue, green, red , vcc
will that work correctly ?
what other features I should check on the led strip to fit the controller ?
would this one from banggood work ?
Thanks.
there are RGBW and RGBWW led strips. Which one works with this controller ?
what is the difference ?
and what type should I choose ? (5050 or 5630 or 3528 , 3014 ?)
one is RGB plus white and one RGB plus warm white
it does not matter it should all work
yup guess i was just unlucky i exchanged by board for a new one and it work with the drivers i had installed, it was a bad board all along
but now i am wondering if i damaged it because i tried to flash the h801 first before i tried to upload a sketch to the mini and it has no 3.3v pin so i just put the switch to 3.3v and used only the TX RX and GND pins and powered the h801 through it’s 12v VCC in
i seem most people are using FTDI USB to serial that have the 3.3v pin
not powering the h801 from it’s 12v power input
and i noticed also that the switch on FTDI board has 3 positions not 2, one is off ,the middle position is off ,so i woder if i was supposed to use off since i was powering the h801 from the 12v input?
i thought it was for switching from 5v logic to 3.3v logic and that i should use 3.3 but maybe i am wrong? this board has no switchable VCC out pin it only has 5v out , even when the switch is set to 3.3 it output 5v , the switch is just for logic i understand that part but i am confuses as to what the 3rd off position is supposed to be used for
Yes I think you probably killed it in the process then. Using 12v to power it might work if you ensure the ground connections are tied together, but if not then you can get weird effects where things might short out. If connecting the 12V source you definitely wouldnt want VCC connected from the FTDI. In theory you are right, changing the voltage should change the logic levels aswell as VCC, however the input specs for the ESP pins are right on the edge of accepting 5V input hence it isnt 100% curcial. Meanwhile, powering at 5V will kill something (often the flash chip but could also kill the ESP).
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How do I know if my AL-LC02 is newer or older HW???
yeah i didn’t use the VCC pin from my FTDI just TX, RX and GND and i powered the h801 normally but i did not not connect the GND from the FTDI to the GND on the h801 , i din’t hokk up anything to the 3.3v programming header on on the h801 ,i set the switch to to 3,3v logic on my FTDI
now i am going to try another board i bought that has a switchable 5v to 3.3v VCC pin with a jumper
it was quite expensive like $17 but i didn’t feel like waiting for one to arrive from china and i want to test one before i order more h801’s i need 3 more for the kitchen , so waiting for the FTDI to arrive before ordering more h801 is too long
no this F%*&ing thing still does not work
please help ,
both the inland FTDI board and the new one i just bought work in arduino IDE to program my pro mini
i tried the new FTDI board to flash the h801 ,the one i just bought for $17 at microcenter with the jumper for 5v or 3v VCC pin , i connected it all up and set the jumper to 3.3v
i soldered the 4 header pins on both the FTDI and the h801
i jump j3 and plug in the FTDI to my USB port on my PC with the h801
connected to it and i try to flash it and i get sync errors can’t connect
i see that both the RX light on the FTDI breakout board and the green light on the h801 will flash in sync ,when i reverse TX and RX nothing flashed at all
i use the same FTDI and the same female to female jumper wires to flash my pro mini in arduino IDE and i have no problems
EDIT: NM it was just a cold solder joint on the h801 header pins
i don’t know what they coat these h801 circuit boards with but the solder does not want to flow at all and the coating burns now that i got it flashed i have no idea what to do next
ok i got my h801 flashed and connected to my network and i added the 2 device handlers and the smart app ,
the my smart apps option was not showing up ,apparently there are like 5 different URL’s of the IDE website and i entered the device handlers and the smart app into the wrong one
i finally found the right URL where my devices and hub were listed and added them there also
now was i supposed to go back to the original URL i added them in , the wrong one and delete
then there? would that cause a conflict if i didn’t?
because it still does not work
it would not detect the controller after 10 minutes. I could see it in my client list in my router
so i went to add it manually and i entered the IP address and hit next it said the controller was added but then when i went to the main page again where it says “manage your RGBW devices” it said “smartlife RGBW controller (ip address)” under where it says “installed devices” but then when i click on the controller it says “configure RGBW controllers created with this app” and under that it says
“device has not been fully configured please make sure the device is powered on and has the correct ip address, when confirmed please come back to this page”
it said that the first time after i added it manually too then i hit delete smart life RGBW controller by accident
and i readded it
TL;DR
controller is flashed , handlers and smart app are installed in IDE and published
but the smartapp will not automatically detect the controller and when i manually add it it does not work
i can’t get the device to show up in ST
when i run discovery i see it has 3 out of 4 bars in my client list but it sometimes drops off the list during discovery then pops back on but the up time counter in my router client list has not reset
ok in the log i keep on seeing this error when running discovery , no idea what it means
b4a9a207-eac6-40d9-acfd-5a98f579eaf8 2:25:09 AM: error java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method startsWith() on null object @ line 646
ok i got it to work … sort of
well just show up and sort of respond,… badly, VERY BADLY
first of all i can not get the white channel to turn off at all no matter what i do
i tried the mutually exclusive RGB/ W setting both on and off
and i slide both w1 and w2 sliders to zero but the white channel is still on no matter what
second it says off in the things list when it is on 
and the color picker does not work at all the lights just flash different colors
colors are all wrong
the program buttons do nothing, the configure button does nothing ,the refresh button does nothing ,and all the colors are wrong
can someone please explain how to use this?
whenever i go into the smartapp and click on my controller under "installed devices"
it says "configure RGBW controllers created with this app"
but then under there it just says
“device has not been fully configured.please make sure the device is powered on and has the correct ip address when confirmed please come back to this page”
how do i get it “fully configured” ?
is this message normal? am i doing something wrong?
also there is a red dot where the configure button icon is , is that supposed to mean something?
Help 
I’m trying to use the Arilux control with smartthings and trying to follow Drews videos but I got a completely different board
I’m not sure where to begin other then find the pinout, to find the pinout to be able to hook it up to the programer but there is no apparent way to put into programing mode, I have some electronics experience but I’m lost. I didn’t find really any relevant information in here so I’m reaching out.
ordered though banggood https://www.banggood.com/ARILUX-AL-LC01-Super-Mini-LED-WIFI-Smart-RGB-Controller-For-RGB-LED-Strip-Light-DC-9-12V-p-1058603.html?rmmds=myorder
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