WS2812 and PL9823 LED power consumption

We are currently evaluating the popular shift-register programmable LEDs of type WS2812B and PL9823 for use in our DIY RC car light controller.

The PL9823 is of particular interest to us as they are in the traditional 5mm dome type LED package and therefore can be installed easily in the light buckets that come with many 1/10 scale RC car body shells.

From a software point of view the PL9823 is compatible with the widely popular WS2812B, with the exception that the data format of the PL9823 is red-green-blue while the WS2812B requires green-red-blue.

The brightness of the PL9823 and the WS2812B seems comparable. However, a downside of the PL9823 is that even if it is not lighting up, it already consumes 7-8mA of current. In comparison, a WS2812B LED consumes less than 1mA when it is off. The 7-8mA is still acceptable for use in an RC car and won't hurt your run time much, but one still needs to take this into account when desiging a system around those LEDs.

The chart below shows the current used by the LEDs when set to white with different brightness values from 0 to 255 on the red, green and blue channels. The PL9823 current usage is ~8mA higher than the WS2812B at every level.

Happy RC-ing!

Make your own RC Winch Controller

Want to control you 1/10 scale winch from your 3-channel RC system? Below you can find instructions to build the necessary controller!

DIY RC Light Controller update

It has been a while since be blogged about our Light controller. In the meantime we have equipped more than ten cars with our custom electronics.

In this post we describe the changes we did along the way to the electronics and the firmware.

RC electronics Part 5 - Drift car power consumption

In part 5 we look at the electric power consumption of a 1/10 scale 4WD drift car.

The test subject is our Tamiya TT01D. We obtained the car second hand quite a while ago. It was originally an Expert Built set but has been substantially modified by the previous owner. It has the obligatory aluminium propeller shaft, a carbon fiber upper deck, a front one-way differential, sway bars, and a HobbyWing EZRun 60A brushless system with a 5.5T motor. The tires are well-worn HPI T-Drift. A 4600mAh 2S 30C LiPo provided energy for the car.

RC electronics Part 4 - Full metal scale Land Rover

The LANE Boys residence currently hosts a very special scale truck for light installation: a custom built full metal Land Rover Series 2 SWB. A good opportunity to see how much energy is needed to run such a RC car.

RC electronics Part 3 - Tamiya CC01 power consumption

In this blog post we look at the power consumption of the Tamiya CC01 Unimog.

RC electronics Part 2 - Battery charging

The popular four-button-chargers support charging of different battery types. This article examines the different charging strategies applied for NiMH and LiPo batteries.

RC electronics Part 1 - Tenth scale 4WD Buggy power consumption

When it comes to RC electronics there is not a lot of technical information available. Not many RC enthusiasts are experts in electronics and the manufacturers only provide very few data-points for their products.

Recently I got the opportunity to acquire a second-hand Eagle Tree Systems eLogger. This device can measure battery voltage, current draw, motor RPM, temperature and throttle input while you are driving your vehicle.

My first target was our 1/10 scale buggy. A Tamiya DB01 Durga: belt driven 4WD, running a sensored 10.5T Turnigy TrackStar motor with a 60A Hobbyking X-Car ESC. The buggy is geared with a 23T pinion on the 97T spur, giving a final drive ratio (FDR) of 8.13. Power was supplied by a LPR 2S LiPo rated 4600mAh 30C.