Thoughts on San Devices

corfoto4

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What is everyone's thoughts on San Devices?

I have been waiting to purchase a controller but all are currently out of stock.
San Devices currently have stock of their 16 port board. Would this be a good purchase considering all of the shortages of controllers at the moment?

Thank You
 

Notenoughlights

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I've got one of their E682 boards. Was the first board I ordered back in 2013 approx, still going strong now. Doesn't have as many fancy features as the Falcon/Advatek/BBB-pi cape boards however. I don't believe they have a huge pixel capacity. If you were wanting to get a controller that you could use for many years and expand on time and time again, I would suggest a BBB + Cape type controller, HE123Mk2, Kulp etc.
 

Lachi3

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I've used my E682 for almost 3 years now, they work really well. I agree with @Notenoughlights, they dont have very fancy feautures but they have everything to have a functioning controller that is realiable. The only thing is you can't add more ports to it.
I bought the kit version of the E682 and the soldering didn't take and i didnt have any issues after.
 

LA0

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My 2021 show ran off 9x E6804 kits. I bought the DIY kit version and soldered them myself.

I prefer them to a lot of the larger more centralised controllers. I thought about going with something like an F48 with smart receivers, but in the end decided against it, due to the F48 itself seeming like one big potential failure point. If anything went wrong with the F48 my entire show could go down.
I also just found multiple little controllers being more versatile for my needs.

I manage all my channel configurations in xlights so I don't need any fancy bells or whistles.

The one down side with the v4 firmware at least, is that you can't limit the brightness in the controller. I had to set a brightness output processor up in FPP.
You could use the beta V5 firmware as that has brightness limiting. But for me that was slightly buggy, at least when accessing the webpage from a mac.

The final thing I like about the sandevices controllers is that they are all through hole components with a very simple design, compared to a lot of the more modern alternatives with tons of SMD components. Should anything ever go wrong with them, it is much easier to troubleshoot.


This year, I am looking more into the Quinled controllers, as they seem very powerful for their price. I bought a few of their ESP32 modules with ethernet recently but haven't had a chance to play with them yet..
 

ezellner

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West Bloomfield, Michigan, USA
I have three 682 and two 6804 San Devices controllers. I have been running them for 5 years and they are solid performers. The version 5 software is a must in my opinion and works well. I bought all as kits and soldered them myself to save a little money while having fun building something. I don't expect there will be more additions or improvements but they have served me quite well. I wouldn't hesitate to start here.
 

algerdes

Al Gerdes
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Nov 29, 2012
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Lebanon, Illinois
E682 (x7), E6804 (x2). Absolutely no problems with them since the beginning of pixel-mania. Still going strong. I have a lot of the "fancy controllers", but once the E682s are in the field I actually forget about them. I just know they will run, and run well. :)
 

darylc

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going to be hard to get help with, I'm not sure I know single person in Australia using them. I'd hold out of Falcons or Kulps to become available personally, it's still very early in the year.
 

corfoto4

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I have been looking into using a number of ESP32s running WLED using E1.31 for my show. They're cheap and are always available.
 

corfoto4

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Perth, WA
I've got one of their E682 boards. Was the first board I ordered back in 2013 approx, still going strong now. Doesn't have as many fancy features as the Falcon/Advatek/BBB-pi cape boards however. I don't believe they have a huge pixel capacity. If you were wanting to get a controller that you could use for many years and expand on time and time again, I would suggest a BBB + Cape type controller, HE123Mk2, Kulp etc.
Someone told me that Hanson Electronic boards for the beaglebone are buggy. Is this true?
 

Katekate

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They don't work as easy right out of the box like Kulps do, but they work fine once you have them configured right.
 

Skymaster

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The board itself doesn't do much. It's just a level shifter from 3.3V to 5V, a bunch of fuses, OLED display and a few other bits and pieces. All the brains is FPP running on the BBB.
The "bugginess" is the fact it doesn't have a coded EEPROM, so the push from X-Lights is not 100%. However, if you set it up correctly, it works fine.
 

corfoto4

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The board itself doesn't do much. It's just a level shifter from 3.3V to 5V, a bunch of fuses, OLED display and a few other bits and pieces. All the brains is FPP running on the BBB.
The "bugginess" is the fact it doesn't have a coded EEPROM, so the push from X-Lights is not 100%. However, if you set it up correctly, it works fine.
Is there a video on YouTube or some sort of documentation that explains how to set this up? I am wanting to use a Pi running FPP to control the whole show. Would the beaglebone just run in slave mode?
 

corfoto4

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They don't work as easy right out of the box like Kulps do, but they work fine once you have them configured right.
I understand that I have to install WLED on them first, and then set up WLED to accept E1.31 from FPP or xlights. Do you know how well ESPs run with their built-in WiFi antenna? I'm wondering if I should get an ESP32 U which requires an external antenna to be attached.
 

Skymaster

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Is there a video on YouTube or some sort of documentation that explains how to set this up? I am wanting to use a Pi running FPP to control the whole show. Would the beaglebone just run in slave mode?
You can run it in slave mode, but it's easier to just run it in normal mode, and have the master Pi output DDP/E1.31 data to it.

Alan has the instructions on his website - https://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/HE123-User-Manual-V1.4-beta1.pdf - the trick in XLights is to set it up as an FPP / RGBCape48F, rather than as a Hanson HE123 board.
 
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