Dig-Next-2 questions, answered.

The Dig-Next-2 is an all-in-one controller for addressable LED strips, built around a dual-core ESP32. It runs WLED out of the box, drives anything from 5V up to 48V strips, and has its fuses, level-shifters and per-output power switching already on the board. You give it power, connect your LEDs, and control colors and effects from your phone.

Reach for the Dig-Next-2 when you want headroom and protection: higher-voltage strips, longer runs, more LEDs, and fused outputs that let it run unattended. The dig2go is the tiny USB-powered box for a quick 5V strip on a desk. The Dig-Next-2 is the wired, fused controller you connect to its own power supply for a permanent install.

Yes. It comes flashed with WLED, so you can be running effects within minutes of wiring it up. It is your hardware, so you can update WLED, or reflash it for ESPHome, FastLED or Moonlight, whenever you want.

Yes. The Dig-Next-2 runs from a DC power supply you provide, sized to your LEDs. That one supply powers both the controller and your strip, so there is only one to buy.

Three things: a power supply that matches your strip's voltage, your addressable LED strip, and a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network (or you can run it standalone in access-point mode). A small flat-blade screwdriver for the terminals helps. Everything electronic is already on the board.

No. The Dig-Next-2 arrives running WLED, and everything happens in an app: connect it to your Wi-Fi, then pick colors, effects and schedules from your phone. Coding never enters into it. If you can install an app, you can run this controller.

Yes. If you can use a small screwdriver, you can wire a Dig-Next-2: two wires in from the power supply, three wires out to your strip, all on labeled screw terminals with no soldering. The setup guide walks through the whole thing in five steps.

A remote-style controller treats the strip as one big lamp: one color for the whole strip and a few fixed modes. The Dig-Next-2 drives addressable strips, where every single LED can be its own color, and WLED adds hundreds of effects, segments, music reactivity and smart-home integration on top.

Any common addressable (pixel) strip: WS2812B, WS2811, WS2815, WS2814, SK6812 in RGB and RGBW, APA102, plus the QuinLED Dig-COB and bullet or seed pixels. If each LED has its own data line, it will drive it.

Yes to all of them. The main input is true 5 to 48V auto-sensing, so it adapts to whatever voltage your strip needs. That is the big advantage over 5V-only controllers: one board covers 5V desk strips, 12V and 24V room lighting, and 48V long runs.

Yes. SK6812 RGBW and WS2814 have a dedicated white LED alongside red, green and blue, and WLED drives that white channel directly. Set the strip type to RGBW in WLED's LED settings and you get proper warm or neutral white.

No. The Dig-Next-2 is built for addressable strips, where every pixel has its own data line. A plain single-color strip with no data line needs a different kind of controller.

Around 1,200 LEDs across its two data outputs at a smooth WLED framerate. The real-world limit is usually power, not the controller: more LEDs need more amps from your supply, and long runs need power injected along the strip.

Yes. It has two independent data outputs, so you can run two separate strips with their own lengths and effects from one controller, for example a desk and a shelf, or two sides of a room.

Match the voltage to your strip: a 5V strip wants a 5V supply, a 24V strip wants 24V, and so on. Then size the wattage to your LEDs. A rough guide is about 0.3W per RGB LED at full white, so pick a supply with some headroom above that figure. For a 24/7 install, a quality current-limited supply is worth it. For sizing and connecting it, see the Dig-Next-2 wiring guide.

No. The USB-C port is for standby power and flashing only, not for driving LEDs. You always need a power supply on the main input to run your strips. You can connect both at once, which is handy with the external relay feature: USB-C keeps the controller awake and on Wi-Fi while the relay switches a big LED power supply off, so it only draws power when the lights are on.

Each of the three power outputs has its own replaceable fuse, rated 5A, 5A and 10A. If a strip shorts or you overload a channel, the cheap fuse blows instead of your strip, your supply or the board. Swapping a fuse takes seconds.

That is what it is designed for. Every power output is individually fused, internal fuses protect the board's own electronics, the input is reverse-polarity protected, and the data lines have ESD and over-voltage protection. It also ships in a finished case, so there is no bare board on your shelf.

The input is reverse-polarity protected, so a flipped power connection will not destroy the board. A short or overload on an output blows that output's fuse and leaves everything else intact. These are the safeguards a lot of cheaper controllers skip.

On a long strip the far end gets less voltage than the start, so colors dim and whites tint. That is voltage drop. Power injection means feeding power to the strip again partway along or at the far end, using the controller's spare power outputs, so the whole run stays bright and even. Short runs do not need it. The wiring guide covers where and how much to inject.

Yes. Each output switches through a solid-state MOSFET, so WLED can cut an output's power completely when the lights are off. That removes idle vampire draw with no mechanical relay to wear out, and there are relay options on board for larger loads.

Power supply into the main input, then data and power from the output to your strip. The full walkthrough with a diagram is on the Dig-Next-2 setup guide, and the in-depth version lives in the wiring guide on quinled.info.

From the top of the output it is GND, then Data, then V+, with the wires colored black for GND, green for Data, and red for V+. On the input side, the orange main-input terminal takes GND and +. Match those to your strip's pads (often labeled GND, DI or DIN for data, and +5V or +12V), and watch the strip's direction arrows.

It usually arrives with WLED already on it. If you ever need to install or reset it, plug in USB-C and open install.quinled.info/dig-next-2/ in a Chrome-based browser. To configure it, join its WLED-AP Wi-Fi from your phone, open the setup page, and add your home 2.4GHz network.

Yes. It is a standard ESP32 board, so it runs WLED, ESPHome, FastLED and Moonlight among others. WLED is the default because it is the quickest way to get color from your phone, but the choice is yours.

Check three things. Power: the controller should show life, and your supply voltage should match the strip. Direction: the strip's arrows must point away from the controller, with Data going to the strip's data-in (DI) end. Strip type: make sure WLED is set to the right chip and color order. A blown output fuse is also worth a look. And if you are running the multi-relay setup, the relay usermod has to be installed and configured, or the outputs never switch on.

That is voltage drop on a long run, not a fault. The fix is power injection: feed power to the strip again further along, using one of the controller's power outputs. Keeping individual runs to a sensible length helps too.

Flicker is almost always power or data. Use a supply with enough current, keep the data wire from controller to strip reasonably short and tidy, and make sure the strip's ground and the controller's ground are connected. The Dig-Next-2 level-shifts its data lines, which already removes the most common cause of glitching.

That is the classic RGB versus RGBW mismatch. WLED is set to a 3-channel RGB strip, but your strip is 4-channel RGBW such as SK6812 or WS2814. Set the strip type to RGBW in WLED's LED settings and the white channel maps correctly.

However suits you. Use the free WLED app on iOS or Android, any web browser pointed at the controller, or add it to Home Assistant. Because it runs WLED you also get Alexa and Google voice control, plus presets and schedules.

It can run standalone in its own access-point mode with no home network, which is handy for a workshop or a portable build. Wi-Fi just adds app control, voice assistants and smart-home integration.

The WLED-AP (or QuinLED-AP) network only shows up when the controller is not already joined to a known Wi-Fi. If it connected to a network before, it will not broadcast its own. Re-power it, wait a minute, and look again on a 2.4GHz capable phone.

Yes. Like nearly all ESP32 devices it uses 2.4GHz, not 5GHz. Most routers broadcast both on the same name, so just make sure your phone is on 2.4GHz during setup.

Yes, there is a microphone built in, so no extra hardware is needed. In WLED, open Config, then Usermods, enable the AudioReactive usermod, save, and re-power. Pick a sound-reactive effect and the lights move to whatever is playing.

Connect USB-C to a computer and open install.quinled.info/dig-next-2/ in a Chrome-based browser. It reflashes the bundled WLED build over USB and resets to defaults, which is a good first step if a setting ever gets into a confusing state.

They are there to expand. The button inputs let you wire physical switches, the I²C port (Stemma QT) takes sensors, and the QEXP header breaks out spare GPIOs for add-ons. You can ignore all of it for a basic light and grow into it later.

Yes on both. WLED is free, open-source firmware, and shipping hardware with it pre-installed is completely fine. You can update or replace it whenever you like, because it is your board.

Start with the Dig-Next-2 setup guide here, then the detailed articles on quinled.info for wiring, power handling, data cabling and relays. For hands-on help, the Intermittent Technology Discord and its #quinled-troubleshooting channel are the fastest way to get unstuck.