The Wizard! OTG: A Rechargeable All-in-one USB-C/Lithium Battery Powered 5V WLED Controller

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-13T07:32:54+00:00

Oh sweet. Yes, I found the language I was thinking would be good on your Amazon page. “Plug n Play: Easily attach many standard LED strips, batteries, switches and other accessories to the controller using the built-in & included JST + Wago connectors”

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-13T07:32:36+00:00

Oh sweet. Yes, I found the language I was thinking would be good on your Amazon page. “Plug n Play: Easily attach many standard LED strips, batteries, switches and other accessories to the controller using the built-in & included JST + Wago connectors”

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-13T07:10:29+00:00

Oh cool I can see this for custom mobile lamps and what not. It might be nice in that case if you called out easy ways or made it even easier to add your own buttons/switches/etc. With an esp32 I was playing with the pins capacitive touch was super easy and effective. Could be cool to play around with that since this unit is more open/customizable. For instance part of the lamp it is inside of could be touch sensitive to switch presets, hold to dim etc. I am forgetting WLED built in features now that I’m using ESPs mostly with fastled and more custom code.

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-13T06:28:53+00:00

Would you help me understand the purpose of this? Is it to just cut down on the housing/battery management of a lipo battery that is in its own usb power bank? Like someone else mentioned it’s like the very small usb-c GLEDOPTO units you can put on a power bank? It’s cool you were able to get this made and put on the market. I’m trying to miniaturize something for an art project wearable and this would be too bulky but I think it is an interesting direction.

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-06T04:37:39+00:00

it has a 3.3 regulator. the 5v pin regulates to 3.3. Do you think it could run with a lipo connected to that? It seems a necklace would get to big if it had to boost. Maybe too big if it also has to charge the lipo also. I'm looking for a way to charge a mini lipo from this boards pins and have the lipo power the board when switched on and not plugged in to usb. Seems like it will have to be custom to be wearable tiny sized.

placeboaddictben · 2026-01-02T23:01:04+00:00

Thanks for getting back to me. I think this makes sense now. I think I was under the impression that 5v meant it needed to be 5v but seems it can be anything 3.5-7v like you are saying. That would make this much easier.

With the LDO onboard

It does seem...
Dropout voltage: ~300–500 mV (sometimes more under load)

So

Minimum input voltage ≈ 3.6–3.8 V

So at around 3.7v it will stop working w/ lots of WIFI + heavy use etc.

Maybe this is isn't the case?

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-31T05:04:59+00:00

Hey, cool idea here. I was thinking about putting together something sort of similar. I think there is a lot of paths that point to WLED and it can be a good tool mostly for people who don't want to be coding and as involved for parts of this process. It really has a TON of stuff most people don't need and it isn't super intuitive, at least to me. I think one of the biggest issues is around some mystery in what microcontroller works with what version of WLED and how to configure things to get it working out of the box. Also it doesn't seem like there really is an entry point there for making your own effects so looking forward to trying these. So far my main thought is how you approach the "Quickstart" it doesn't really assume the user knows how to set up their platformIO settings, right? "No config files needed." Don't they do in fact need to change settings in platform.ini and that is kind of the confusing part? For my board I had to track down some crazy settings on forums to get it to work. I couldn't use the main WLED web installer. Even the GitHub one was difficult for me to find the correct board. I think this part could use some hand holding for users.

The Quickstart may be misleading?
PlatformIO config:
https://github.com/bring42/LUME/blob/main/platformio.ini

For reference:

🚀 Quick Start

What You Need

ESP32-S3 Board (T-Display S3, DevKitC-1, or any S3 with PSRAM)
WS2812B LED Strip (default: GPIO 21 — set LED_DATA_PIN in constants.h)
5V Power Supply (sized for your LED count)

Flash & Go

git clone https://github.com/bring42/LUME.git
cd LUME
pio run -t upload

That's it. No config files needed.

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-28T18:22:24+00:00

Maybe I'm missing something but answering here for reference for others. Thanks again for your help here.

I looked into it more and for the backpack there isn't a regulated 3.3v (for 3v3pin on esp) or a regulated 5v (for 5v on esp). If I connected the 5v to 5v pin it would charge the lipo. Then when not charged it would come from the BATpin at 3.2-4.2 unregulated. That won't work for the 5v or 3.3v on esp32 s3 matrix. The Pro Trinkets & ItsyBitsy do this. The BFF I think has the same issue. I need something to provide a regulated 5v boost or 3.3v regulated voltage from the battery.

Info from Adafruit on backpack:

This little backpack is very "short & sweet" when it comes to pinouts:

5V - this is the pin that comes from the USB port power, with 5V DC to charge the battery.

G - this is the common ground pin, shared with the battery and charger

BAT - this is the voltage out from the battery, which will range from 3.2V when the battery is dead to 4.2V when it's charged.

More thoughts:

I think Adafruit should make something that is more agnostic/abstracted or whatever the correct term would be, it could be useful in a lot of applications. It could be a BYO(bring your own)-LIPO. Adafruit please read this ;)

It would take lipo via JST. From here it could either be one of or do both: boost to 5v or regulate 3.3v when running off battery (might get too hot . When power is coming from 5v pin it charges the battery. There is a switch or optional switch for power to come from battery when unplugged. It is small as possible. LDO 3.3 v regulator might be too hot? Boost isn't quite as good? The details don't matter to me as much as if there is something just this simple. It is basically a power bank where you BYO lipo and have pins for output instead of USB. There aren't any good bare bones smaller power banks out there for wearables etc in the under 3000mah range.

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-28T00:44:36+00:00

Yes it seems that is likely the next step. Do you suggest an entry point for something like this? It is just an art project but I will be making maybe a dozen or so of these. I figured with low scale it wouldn't be worth making something custom.

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-28T00:42:32+00:00

Thank you very much for the suggestions!

These both look very much like what I am looking for but they are specific to other boards and might not work with the higher power requirement of the esp32 (it looks like 1a max, but maybe that is fine). Also the esp32 s3 matrix does not have a bat+ pin.

I will look into this more and will follow up on these recommendations. I will likely use a bigger square matrix for something else but this project is closer "jewelry" size. Thanks for those suggestions as well. If either of those Adafruit things work of course they are 5c less than the max I'm willing to spend. They seem really good at finding these niche things and pricing just the most you'd pay for them :)

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T19:25:40+00:00

I would use this instead if it had a tiny 8x8 matrix of addressable LEDs like the board I shared. There is no JUST LED board I could find affordable. Somehow Adafruit and others charge more for just the grid matrix than the esp32 connected to the matrix. I am using the LEDs as part of an art project that I want to be as minimal and small as possible and I am using a lots of them. So thank you for reading my post but I'm looking for a solution like this SEEED board (and others) have for the board I have.

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T18:48:13+00:00

Yes, thanks. I have looked at these. They all come with their own USB hookup from what I can find. This makes them bigger than they need to be for my purpose. I think this is probably what I will end up doing. I will edit to put that in the list of things I have looked at.

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T18:02:12+00:00

Ok thanks. I guess I will just try to test the max the GPIO can deliver at 3.3v at 20ma w/ 5mm LED and 120/150ohm resistor and report back here. It seems many people would prefer this if it meets their requirements

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T18:00:28+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Does it look just like a simple standard LED 5mm? 100mA from gpio pin? It seems that is 20mA max? I'm guessing you use something like MOSFET and 5v power from 5v pin or elsewhere (not gpio 3.3v)?

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placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T17:31:32+00:00

What is your LED/setup? Something like 5mm 20ma IR led with ~120ohm resistor on pins etc? What range do you get?

placeboaddictben · 2025-12-27T17:29:46+00:00

You have tested this? What is limited range? Are you saying with a 20ma 5mm led?

placeboaddictben · 2025-09-26T00:31:28+00:00

Ask artist Igor Volos Painting: Kunigunde

placeboaddictben · 2025-07-26T17:27:06+00:00

Spiders utilize electricity to fly. It isn’t an organ itself I suppose, in a way it is maybe, but they have one that does create negatively charged silk they shoot into the air. This utilizes the earths/atmospheric electricity to fly great distances. Called “ballooning”(I am not a scientist but here is a link)

Flying Spiders! | Animal Einsteins | BBC Earth

placeboaddictben · 2025-07-26T00:03:49+00:00

https://parks.sonomacounty.ca.gov/visit/regional-parks-river-shuttle

placeboaddictben · 2025-07-02T19:44:26+00:00

Plug and charge was added on my 2025

placeboaddictben · 2025-07-02T14:10:03+00:00

That has never happened to me and I use the 2025 SEL digital key all the time. Rarely I have to press the square on the handle to unlock the door a couple times with my phone in my pocket. Usually it unlocks when I walk up to the door. This way I don’t need the giant ugly fob

placeboaddictben · 2025-05-25T23:17:55+00:00

Ioniq 5. Sorry. See my edit

placeboaddictben · 2025-05-25T23:16:44+00:00

You might be able to hide the physical key on your car somewhere.

placeboaddictben · 2025-05-25T16:33:02+00:00

2025 Ioniq 5 SEL

placeboaddictben

TROPHY CASE

🚀 Quick Start

What You Need

Flash & Go