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Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
@Gordon
@allObjects I have a bit of background on this - I think the lights are something like the attached image.
WS2812s internally do PWM, but as you say, at full brightness it's going to be drawing WAY more than the phone charger can provide. If you do use a more powerful charger the Espruino itself has a self-resetting 1A fuse, so that'll hit you after a bit too.
For the moment, your student could use small numbers (and some capacitors) - like try driving with
31,31,31. He could still max out a few of them if he wanted though (just not all of them!).I guess the other thing is if it's a 0.5A power supply, it might be quite a cheap one? Could be it generates a lot of noise on the 5V line (or maybe even substantially more than 5V) and that's throwing the lights off a bit. Sticking capacitors on would help, and he could also try putting a diode between Espruino's
Batoutput and the Lights' voltage input. It's drop the voltage by 0.7v, which would reduce the current consumption and might also lower the voltage, making the signal to the lights more reliable.1 Attachment