Today I went forth to Bunnings in the rain to purchase a Holman CLXRGB60 RGB garden light controller so that I too could have fancy lighting in my garden and impress all those guests I never have over. I had been given hope by the Blakadder site that I would be able to flash tasmota onto the controller so it integrated with my Home Assistant home automation.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Despite the device being TYWE3L based, the warning on the blakaddr site was correct, and this is a next-gen Tuya device where the crypto hasn’t been broken yet. Then again, I couldn’t even get this device to pair in the Holman app, so it clearly hates me.
This unfortunately means the excellent instructions from Jon Oxer were unforunately not helpful today. I think there is a theoretical option here to flash using the serial pins on the board, ala this guide. Also, it means my hair got wet for nothing.
So as to take revenge for my wet hair I have decided to pivot. The Holman lights seem quite well made, but they’re just 12 volt RGB PWM devices. So I can use their lights and build my own controller — although I need to ponder how to drive high current PWM I suppose. I thought it would therefore be useful to document the pinout on the Holman connector before I return the controller.
These pins map to the following colours of conductor on the cable I chopped up:
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- +12v: black
- Red: brown
- Green: earth (green and yellow)
- Blue: white
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I hope this is helpful to someone else as well. I wonder what this connector is called?