Apartment Patio Rail

I am very new and still watching videos and reading everything I can find to understand how this all works. I'm starting to understand things but am a little stuck right now on the planning phase. I live in an apartment and want to do a small display on the front railing of our patio. The attached picture shows our front railing. I haven't been able to find anything as to how that would be configured with pixels. I probably need to run a line across the top rail and across the bottom rail. But then would I run a separate line up each individual rail or would I use a long line and just go up, over, down through all the rails so they are just one long string. If I did that then every other rail would have pixels at the to and bottom where the line is going across the top and bottom. That might look strange but I don't know. Or if I run an individual line up each rail how do I connect them into the system? Would each rail be it's own channel? If so that would be a lot of channels that I need (25 plus the top and bottom).

I also plan to have at least 4 candy canes on the front, probably 2 on each side with them crossing each other like an X.

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just a little confused as to how this all connects together.



View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18QPy32WTaY88RLaBYHZ6uRf21QctZd7F/view?usp=sharing



Thanks,
Curtis

If you are doing smart pixels. Lets say strings, then every node is 3 channels. Red, Green and Blue.
You use a digital controller, like the Falcon F16 (example only)
You can run a string of pixels along the Top rail. Cut the String where it finishers, connect wire to it and take the wire to the next lot of strings,
continue with them, cut them and put wire between again and keep on repeating.
The number of pixels used will determine the size of the controller, the power usage and if you need to inject power every 50 nodes.
The string can be cut at any point, but it must be wired in the right direction for the data to flow through to the other nodes.

Have you downloaded and read over our AusChristmasLighting 101 manual.
It will help immensely

videoman3857 said:

If you are doing smart pixels. Lets say strings, then every node is 3 channels. Red, Green and Blue.
You use a digital controller, like the Falcon F16 (example only)
You can run a string of pixels along the Top rail. Cut the String where it finishers, connect wire to it and take the wire to the next lot of strings,
continue with them, cut them and put wire between again and keep on repeating.
The number of pixels used will determine the size of the controller, the power usage and if you need to inject power every 50 nodes.
The string can be cut at any point, but it must be wired in the right direction for the data to flow through to the other nodes.

Have you downloaded and read over our AusChristmasLighting 101 manual.
It will help immensely

Click to expand...

I am planning to use smart pixels. So I wouldn't wire each vertical bar individually to the controller but would just keep wiring them together into 1 long string with a wire running between the gaps??? Then just run the whole thing to the controller?

I do have the 101 manual and have been reading it but so far am just around 25% through it.

DrizztGuen said:

I am planning to use smart pixels. So I wouldn't wire each vertical bar individually to the controller but would just keep wiring them together into 1 long string with a wire running between the gaps??? Then just run the whole thing to the controller?

Click to expand...

Thats correct, 1 string but you can make it so no pixels are in the gaps, you may have to splice in extra wire to cover the gaps, the software/controller will see it as 1 string but you program/sequence individual nodes

DrizztGuen said:

I am planning to use smart pixels. So I wouldn't wire each vertical bar individually to the controller but would just keep wiring them together into 1 long string with a wire running between the gaps??? Then just run the whole thing to the controller?
.

Click to expand...

That is correct, one controller output is called a universe. The universe contains 512 channels. Each pixel occupies 3 channels (Red Green Blue)
Therefore 512 / 3 = 170 pixels before you have to start a new string of lights.
When you program the sequence from the controller you can choose to illuminate any pixel on that universe (string of pixels)
Because this system is digital, the controller sends out a signal to each chip that's in the pixel. It is that chip that actually turns the pixel on and off and mixes the colour.
If this was an analogue system, you would need 512 sets of wires coming back to the controller to accomplish the same thing the digital accomplishes with 1 wire - well three if you include the 2 power leads