ESP8266 Community Forum

I am trying to make my first arduino simple project based on the directions of this video for a gift to my fiancee [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duiAbLsXZSE&t=309s&ab_channel=Breaks%27n%27Makes[/youtube].
Suggest you watch it so you can understand better.
I follow his directions exactly but I made one change: I use a WS2811 led strip with a 12V-1A power supply so I power the LED strip from the power supply by soldering it on the step down converter's inputs.
Not to just mention that there is no experience in the soldering part so I've made a bit of a mess.

This is a funny drawing of what I am trying to accomplish:

and this is a video of my creation so you can see for yourselves: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOYLV7v2Txo[/youtube]

So the issue is that after the upload of the sketch to the Wemos D1 mini pro. I plug everything on and just sometimes nothing happens and sometimes just the LED strip is turned on but I have no control via the app. Essentially no connection to wifi. And just like that, I've just "burned" 2 wemos D1 mini pro. Or I think I have because they are not responding when I try to upload a sketch and no LED onboard light turns on.

I want point out that:
1) The dupont wires on wemos didnt hold that well and I had to balance them out or hold them.
2) I measured 50 times all the connections (voltage) and seemed fine. I even measured the voltage on the strip itself. 12V on the strip and the input pins of the step down converter and 5V everything else (including data of led strip.)
3) I am not good at the soldering part yet. Dunno if that's the issue.

Please help me fellow scientists!

Hi, before making your setup, did you check your wimos separately? You are not being able to connect your wimos to the app, right? Could you connect it to the APP before making your lamp? I can see that you've already soldered your all components. still, I'll suggest you to check each and every component separately. This will help you to figure out if any of them is faulty from the beginning. If you think your soldering is bad, you'd better check with a multimeter if is any accidental short circuit anywhere. If all components are good and your connection is also flawless then kindly check if your power supply is giving sufficient voltage and current to the whole setup.