μLED receiver

This project was created to provide a tiny (25x12mm) and an easy plug-n-play solution for every RGB LED enthausiast. This module can be soldered onto any WS2812B-like LED strip with voltages between 5V and 12V. This whole board is as large as a standard ESP-12F module (but this has everything you need already on-board). The module is based on the ESP8285 chip (ESP8266 with 2MB of internal storage), so it has wifi capabilities. You can use this module to create your own IoT LED solution, or you can install WLED on it. The board features a micro USB port and a USB to serial converter with a flash mode button, so developing your own firmware is also made really easy.

It gets it's power from the LED strip, or from the USB port (you can't power the LEDs through the USB port because of current issues). It's also possible to power the board and LED strip through the solder pads under the antenna (1A max!).

The external antenna on the board has 2 benefits. One of them is obvious, extended range! The second one is more subtle. The external antenna uses less space on the PCB itself than a PCB trace antenna would have. This made the small size of the board possible.

There is also a quick voltage drop analysing tool on the board. The ADC is connected to 2 resistors to measure the voltage over the LED strip. This can be used to determine if power injection is required to keep colour accuracy.