An-Penta-Deca · getting started

Fifteen channels, one plan.

The Deca is wired exactly like the smaller boards — there's just more of it. The trick is a little planning up front. Here's how to map fifteen channels into zones and bring them all into Home Assistant. Smaller board? See the Mini or Plus guide.

By Quindor · QuinLED / Intermit.Tech · Updated June 2026

The An-Penta-DecaYour controller and a USB-C cable for the first flash.
A 12–48V supplyOne DC supply matched to your strips, sized for the whole load (up to 30A).
Your stripsAny mix of white, dual-white, RGB, RGBW or RGBCCT at one voltage.
A label maker helpsWith fifteen channels, labelling your zones as you wire saves real time later.

How it all connects

One supply into Power IN; fifteen fused outputs split into zones — here, three independent RGBCCT strips, each its own light.

PSU 12–48V DC − + An-Penta-Deca ESP32 · 15 × 5A · 30A total 6 FUSED POSITIVE OUTPUTS Z1Z2Z3 Zone 1 · RGBCCT (5 ch) · warm white tonight Zone 2 · RGBCCT (5 ch) · a colour when you want it Zone 3 · RGBCCT (5 ch) · tunable white three independent zones · one board · each its own light in Home Assistant
1

Map your zones first

Fifteen channels go a long way. The cleanest mental model is three blocks of five — each block can be a full RGBCCT strip (R, G, B, WW, CW). But you're free to carve it up any way you like: a wall of independent white zones, a couple of RGBW accent runs, or a mix.

Write down what each channel will be before you wire — it makes the firmware step trivial and the install tidy.

Group warm + cool white pairs per zone so each zone becomes its own tunable-white light in Home Assistant.
2

Wire power, then each zone

Feed one 12–48V supply into Power IN, matched to your strips. Then wire each zone to its channels — every positive output is fused (6 fuses protect the 15 channels), so a fault in one zone can't take down the rest. Keep each channel within 5A and the whole board under 30A.

With this many channels it's worth sizing your supply carefully and double-checking each zone's polarity as you go. Mounting flanges let you fix the board down for a permanent install.
3

Flash ESPHome or WLED and define your lights

In ESPHome, each zone becomes a light entity — cwww for tunable white, rgbww for RGBCCT, rgb for colour. Grab the real pins from the An-Penta-Deca pinout guide — here are all three RGBCCT zones across the 15 channels:

ESPHome · An-Penta-Deca · three RGBCCT zones
# Deca LED1-15 = 27,26,25,23,22, 21,19,18,17,14, 13,12,5,4,2
output:
  # zone 1
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO27, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z1_r }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO26, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z1_g }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO25, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z1_b }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO23, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z1_ww }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO22, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z1_cw }
  # zone 2
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO21, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z2_r }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO19, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z2_g }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO18, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z2_b }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO17, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z2_ww }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO14, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z2_cw }
  # zone 3
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO13, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z3_r }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO12, frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z3_g }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO5,  frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z3_b }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO4,  frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z3_ww }
  - { platform: ledc, pin: GPIO2,  frequency: 20000 Hz, id: z3_cw }

light:
  - platform: rgbww
    name: "Cove zone 1"
    red: z1_r
    green: z1_g
    blue: z1_b
    cold_white: z1_cw
    warm_white: z1_ww
    cold_white_color_temperature: 6500 K
    warm_white_color_temperature: 2200 K
  - platform: rgbww
    name: "Cove zone 2"
    red: z2_r
    green: z2_g
    blue: z2_b
    cold_white: z2_cw
    warm_white: z2_ww
    cold_white_color_temperature: 6500 K
    warm_white_color_temperature: 2200 K
  - platform: rgbww
    name: "Cove zone 3"
    red: z3_r
    green: z3_g
    blue: z3_b
    cold_white: z3_cw
    warm_white: z3_ww
    cold_white_color_temperature: 6500 K
    warm_white_color_temperature: 2200 K

Prefer WLED? It handles multiple PWM outputs too — assign your channels in the LED settings and run it from your phone. Install or update WLED in a couple of clicks with QuinLED's web flasher at install.quinled.info — always the latest An-Penta-ready build.

4

Add it to Home Assistant and build your zones

Adopt the device in Home Assistant (ESPHome) or add the WLED integration — every zone appears as its own local light. Set each zone's white temperatures, then build whole-room scenes that bring the zones together: a warm "movie night", a bright "clean the house", a colourful "party". Map them to buttons, schedules or your voice assistant. Every channel has been dimming flicker-free at ~20 kHz the whole time, so even a fifteen-channel fade stays clean.

Group your zones into Home Assistant areas (lounge, kitchen, hallway) so a single tap controls a whole room at once.
Keep going

Stuck on something?

The Deca FAQ covers zone planning, mixed-strip configs, whether 15 channels bog down Home Assistant, and how fifteen channels handle a fault. Full technical docs are on quinled.info.

Read the FAQ An-Penta-Deca on quinled.info Ask in the Discord