WS281x LEDs are very simple to wire with their 3 LEDs. There are three options of how to wire, each detailed below.

Raspberry Pi Wiring

The hardest part about wiring with a Raspberry Pi is connecting up the 3.3v logic from the Pi to the strip that wants 5v. There are several ways you can do this, which are described in more detail below.

No Level Shifting

It is possible to connect the LEDs up without any kind of level shifting, however mileage varies from strip to strip. I have one setup like this, and one with the full logic shifter. This can work because the spec of the LED strips means they need 0.7 * VDD(5v) which is ~3.5v. Close to the Pi's 3.3, so depending on how tight of a tolerance your strip has, this is possible.

Wiring is as follows:

• Pi GND to LED GND

• Pi to LED Data in

• Power supply GND to LED GND

Level Shifting Chip

You can use a level shifting chip to convert the signals from 3.3v to 5v. Recommended one to use is a 74AHCT125, I have this and it works well.

Wiring of this is as follows:

• Common ground between:

  • Pi GND

  • LED GND

Wiring with a Diode

The diode method is a quick way to reduce the power supply voltage slightly, so that the LED strip can read the 3.3v.

Wiring is as follows:

• Pi to LED Data in

• Power supply 5V to 1N4001 diode anode (side without the stripe)

• 1N4001 diode cathode (side with the stripe) to LED 5V

On to the next stage: SPI setup

LED Strips

The 4 types of LED strips that the plugin supports are:

• WS2811 (including B variants)

• WS2812 (including B variants)

• SK6812 RGB

• SK6812 RGBW

Please note as well that 'NeoPixels' are an Adafruit brand name, I find that they are much cheaper direct from China with just as good results, they are the same thing.

Power Supplies

There are no officially-supported models for power supplies, since they are all the same. However, please make sure you are using an external power supply and not using the RPi GPIO pins to power the LEDs. They cannot provide the power drawn by a strip of WS281x LEDs.

Don't use tiny wires to connect the LEDs - these can heat up and melt if they are too thin.

Level Shifting

I have had good results with a 74ACHT125 level shifter, which is recommended by Adafruit for their Neopixels. Please note that while WS281x LEDs work without level shifting, you may need to keep the wires as short as possible - especially when using 12V LEDs.

Raspberry Pi

All models of Raspberry Pi are supported currently, however for new models I will have to wait for upstream support from the rpi-ws281x library first. This page will be updated if this happens!

This also means that no other devices than a Raspberry Pi are supported. There are no alternative libraries for WS281x LED control (for Python) that could enable this, so there is nothing that can be done. Sorry!

The plugin will not load if it is not running on a Raspberry Pi, even if it does install.

Got the necessary hardware? Wire it up!

I've tried to make this setup process as simple as possible, while it was already easy it is even easier with this guide.

Installation

Install the plugin via OctoPrint's bundled plugin manager or manually using this URL:

Once you have installed and enabled the plugin, OctoPrint will prompt you to restart the server.

Check you have the right hardware:

Next up: Wiring your LEDs

The plugin uses the Raspberry Pi's SPI interface to push data to the LED strip, rather than PWM since it doesn't need to be run as root to use SPI.

As a result of this, there are a couple of OS level configuration items that need to be handled. Luckily for you, the plugin makes this very easy for you to do by providing a UI to run the commands.

Initial Setup Wizard & OS Configuration Test

The setup wizard requires root access, and therefore the password for the Pi user if you have not configured passwordless sudo, as is default on OctoPi. This password is not stored, and is only used for the steps below.

• Add the pi user to the gpio group.

  Already configured on most OS images. Means the pi users can access the GPIO pins.

Final stage: Initial Configuration

Using WS281x LEDs to create a flash for a timelapse

By using the power of @ commands it is very easy to make your LEDs react to other plugins that use GCODE scripts. For example, to make the LEDs flash for the timelapse, to light it up, you can use the following settings:

• Enable 'Torch mode is a toggle' in the WS281x LED Status settings, and set the torch effect to solid colour & bright white (and colour will do, but white is the most common!)

• OctoLapse Custom Camera Gcode Scripts

  • Before snapshot:

  • After Snapshot

That's it! You can run OctoLapse in test mode to test it out.

Open the plugin's entry in OctoPrint's settings interface, and you should be presented with this view:

Click on the 'LED Strip Settings' button in the top right. The key settings you should edit are listed below:

• Strip Type Select the type of strip you have connected to your Pi. Note: This may not be exactly what you were sold, sometimes they send variations. If you have issues, please try similar strip types here.

• Number of LEDs This should be easy, count the number of LEDs you have connected and enter the right number!

• Max Brightness This setting controls the maximum brightness that your LEDs should reach.

For more details on the rest of these settings, please see the

This documentation should tell you all you need to know about how to use the plugin. There's a lot of information here, please be sure to read some of it before opening issues in case the solution is here.

Please select the area that most describes what you need help with:

The plugin needs access to the underlying hardware to drive the LEDs. To do this it will need to run privileged with docker.

Each progress effect has some standard options, to customise them. Individual effects have additional options, listed alongside them.

Standard Options

• Enabled

• Progress Colour The colour to indicate the progress of whatever event is happening.

• Base Colour

  The base/background colour of the progress indication.

In addition, there are two global options:

• Reverse the direction of the progress bar

• Base temperature Heating/cooling progress bar will make '0' the temperature specified. Suggested value is just below room temperature, so that the progress bar starts closer to the end of the strip.

Events

Printing Progress

Matches the progress bar in OctoPrint's UI, on your LED strip.

Heating Progress

Triggered when a blocking heating command (M109 or M190) sent to the printer.

Additional options:

• Index of tool to track Leave this at 0 for single extruder printers, for multiple extruder printers you can choose a single tool to track.

• Enable tracking tool heating

• Enable tracking bed heating

Cooling Progress

Triggered only on print success, this will display the progress of the printer while it is still cooling, until the threshold is reached, and then the 'Print Success' effect would run.

Additional options:

• Track cooling on bed or tool - select one, since they usually cool down at the same time.

• Cooling temperature threshold - the temperature when cooling tracking should stop.

The plugin reacts to several events to display printing effects. For each of these effects, they have similar settings:

• Enable Whether the effect will run or not

• Effect One of the available effects

• Colour The primary colour to run the effect. Note this is ignored in some effects.

• Delay The length of time to wait between each frame of the effect.

Some events also have some specific settings, these are detailed alongside them.

Events

• Startup

• Printer Connected/Idle

• Printer Disconnected

Effects

All the standard effects available, with fancy visualisations!

Solid Colour

Sets all LEDs to one colour, forever.

Colour Wipe

Wipes colour across the strip pixel by pixel, then clears it pixel by pixel.

Colour Wipe V2

Wipes colour pixel by pixel, as above, but to clear it turns around and heads backwards.

Pulse

Fades brightness up and down. Looks better in real life than the visualisation below!

Bounce

Sends a pulse of light bouncing from one side of your strip to the other.

Solo Bounce

Sends just a single pixel from one side to the other, bouncing about.

Rainbow

Cycles all the LEDs through the rainbow together.

Rainbow Cycle

Rainbow that cycles across the strip, so a full rainbow is across the whole strip at once.

Crossover

Two pixels bouncing in opposite directions, crossing over in the middle.

Random

Sets all LEDs to a random colour, then changes a random pixel, to a new random colour

Bouncy Balls

A physics based effect, simulating 2 balls bouncing up and down. Looks great on longer strips (and shorter ones too...!).

Unfortunately creating the simulation for this effect didn't work, so is unavailable for now. Sorry!

Commands should be formatted as such:

M150 [P{intensity}] [R{intensity}] [G{intensity}] [B{intensity}] [W{intensity}]

All of the parameters are optional, and can be included in any order. If an option is not included, its value is 0 - as a result sending an empty M150 command will turn the LEDs off.

Examples:

What does the W parameter do?

On a standard RGB WS281x strip, the W parameter sets an equal value of R, G and B on the LEDs.

If you have an RGBW strip and enable the 'Use dedicated white' setting, the W parameter will control the white LEDs only.

Sending any of R, G or B with the command takes priority over the W.

This documentation aims to explain all of the settings in the LED Strip Configuration dialog, so you can make the most use of them.

GPIO Pin Options

What other pins work?

To run this without root access, you must use an SPI pin. WS281x LEDs require specific timing pulses, and not every pin can produce these.

On all Pi's, the default, GPIO 10 can be used.

On all Pi's except the original Pi 1 model A and Pi 1 model B, GPIO 20 can be used. This requires adding dtoverlay=spi1-3cs to the /boot/config.txt file to enable SPI1

Other SPI interfaces are available, specific to certain Raspberry Pi models. More details on them can be found on the which contains detailed information. It is unknown if they all work with WS281x LEDs.

Can I use a PWM pin?

Using a PWM pin to drive WS281x LEDs on a Raspberry Pi requires root access. This is out of my control. It is not recommended to run OctoPrint (or any web server) with root privileges due to security reasons. So while yes, you can use PWM you are on your own to configure OctoPrint to run as root.

What about some other GPIO pin?

If it's not an SPI capable pin, or a PWM capable pin then no. This is a hardware limitation of the Raspberry Pi.

LED Strip Test

Solid colour buttons

These are helpful to test the individual colours of the LED strip, to make sure the hardware and software are configured correctly. Helpful to identify if you might have selected the wrong colour order in the LED strip configuration. Each button sets that colour to maximum intensity, to isolate the individual colours.

You can also set a custom colour to be sent to the LEDs.

Effect test

This section allows for testing a configuration for an effect instantly, without needing to wait for the relevant event to occur. Configure the effect, colour and delay and then press 'Test'!

OS Configuration Test

The popup box will run a configuration test on your OS. It tests for the same things that the , to allow you to verify everything is OK down the line.

At any time, you can run a test of the above settings, using the configuration test dialog. When you run the test, it will tell you if all of the steps are filled in correctly, and if they are not, prompt you to fix it with a click of a button.

This data is also logged to octoprint.log on startup, to help me with diagnosing issues reported to rule out this configuration being the problem.

Power Calculation

Calculates the approximate power consumption of the LED strip. Useful to work out if your power supply is up-to-the task.

The nominal value included by default is 40mA, since this is what I have found to be most common. Brighter LEDs take more power, so adjust to what you think is right for your strips.

Here's all the details of the additional features of the plugin, so you can effectively configure them.

Torch

The torch button can be turned on or off to clear up navbar space if you don't want it. It has the same settings as standard effects but with some added extras for a manual trigger.

Using @ commands to trigger the torch can enable cool integrations with other software, such as OctoLapse.

Toggle Mode

The torch button or turns the torch on permanently, until it is turned off. This blocks any other effects.

Timed Mode

The torch button starts a timer to turn off after configurable length of time.

Auto activate when viewing webcam

The torch will turn on when the control tab is focused in OctoPrint's UI, and turn off when you click off to another tab.

Override active times

Allow the torch mode to be enabled regardless of the active times configuration.

Active Times

The LED strip will turn on at the start time, off at the end time. Potentially useful if you don't want them on overnight.

M150 Intercept

Enable intercepting and using M150 commands. If not checked, these commands will be sent to the printer.

For documentation of the command, please see the

@ Command Reaction

Enable reacting to Host @ Commands.

For documentation of the available commands, please see the

Debug Logging

Debug logging logs a lot more information about the effect runner process. This will help massively when reporting issues on GitHub, so please enable it when reporting issues!

Native Integration

These apps have built in support for WS281x LED Status, allowing you to control your LEDs directly within them. Thank you to their respective developers for implementing support!

The plugin implements a SimpleAPI as provided by OctoPrint, which enables external access to the plugin's functionality.

It has a single endpoint, supporting a get request and posting a command.

SimpleAPI Get

GET http://octopi.local/api/plugin/ws281x_led_status

Get current state of the plugin, which includes the light status and the torch status.

Headers

SimpleAPI Command

POST http://octopi.local/api/plugin/ws281x_led_status

Send commands to the plugin, to make it do something.

Headers

Request Body

Commands

Custom @ commands

The simplest custom trigger, a custom @ command. All commands are prefixed as such:@WS custom <command> to make sure they do not conflict with others.

You can define your own custom effect to run when this @ command is received.

Custom Events

You can setup the plugin to react to any event you choose for it. For a list of OctoPrint's events, please . 3rd party plugins will add their own events, which should appear in the list to select them.

Like above, you can then add a custom effect that will be triggered whenever this event is received.

Custom Gcode Effects

There's 3 types of triggers here, that you can use.

Gcode Match

Match just the G or M code. For example, if you enter G28, the plugin will match G28 X Y, or G28 Z as well. Or if you enter G29 it will match G29 T as well.

Exact Match

This will match the entire line sent to the printer. If you just want an effect when homing Z, you could enter G28 Z here. The whole line needs to be exactly the same for this effect to trigger.

Regex Match

Here you can enter a valid regex to run against the lines received from the printer. For example, G[0-9]+ would match any G command sent to the printer. You could use M50[0-3] to match any of the EEPROM management commands, M500, M501, M502 or M503.

This is going to be an ever-evolving page, as I learn of common issues people identify when setting up the plugin.

From :

@ commands (also known as host commands elsewhere) are special commands you may include in GCODE files streamed through OctoPrint to your printer or send as part of GCODE scripts, through the Terminal Tab, the API or plugins. Contrary to other commands they will never be sent to the printer but instead trigger functions inside OctoPrint.

The plugin reacts to some different @ commands, listed below: