Powering 12v LED with a seperate PS?

1st Official Post

    I have a Raspberry Pi 4 that I plan on using the original 5v 3a power supply via USB.

    For the LED I plan on using 12v SK6812, would I be connecting just the data pin to the pi and 12v to neg/pos of the led?

    I see some diagram requiring resisters etc...

    • Official Post
    The Importance of Sharing Grounds
    majenko.co.uk

    Make sure to buy individually addressable SK6816 LEDs, not 1 IC 3 LEDs.

    And see

    LED power calculator

    The screenshot is for ESPs, but in your case it would be an RPI.

    Level Shifter and Resisitor optional.

    regards pclin

    Thanks for the info... so if I'm understanding this correctly, the 5v and 12v ground goes together?

    Here's my 3 year old drawing of the simplified version. This assumption is correct?

    BTW, this setup is going around a 75" tv I'm calculating about 17feet of LED. To make it less complicated, would it be better if I used 5v SK6812?


    Edited once, last by cheapie408 (December 26, 2025 at 7:39 PM).

    Thanks for all the responses. I've decided that I won't be directly controlling the LED with the PI. I'm going to try to do Hyperion/WLED route as it seems to be the simplest and I'm already familiar with WLED

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