I've put together a Pi 3 with grabber using WS2801s and everything's worked as expected for the few weeks that it's taken me to get set up.
So last night I decided I was ready to try it out and watch some Netflix with everything turned on, and it worked great for about 30 minutes before the LEDs just stopped dead. Rebooted, fully powercycled everything - nothing worked.
I quickly spotted that although previously switching the system on caused the first LED the light up before Hyperion kicked-in and did the swirl, I'm now getting nothing at all when the LEDs receive power. A quick check with a multimeter shows there's 5v at the strip, so it looks like the first LED/chip is fried (or maybe more of them?)
My next step is to cut off the first LED and attach the cables to the next one...
But I can't understand how/why the first one got damaged - one minute everything's working and then suddenly it's not.
So the question is: what can cause damage to the LED strip, and how can I prevent it from happening again?
Aside from using a level shifter (which I gather isn't used by everyone) my setup is standard - WS2801 connected to the SPI pins on a Pi. I've got a 10A supply (also powering the Pi) incase that's relevant.
I suppose last night was the longest continual time that the strip had been illuminated, and at the time of failure there was a lot of white (which pulls the most power?).
Any ideas?