BBB Diffcape - A simple and cheap differential controller

[bepa]

Hi everyone!

Because my WLED and ESPixelstick setup didn't work very well (17 controllers with much lag within the show) and Falcon or Kulp controllers are not so fast available where I live, I designed a very simple and cheap differential cape for the Beaglebone black.
It has no protection except a bit ESD surge diodes. The PCB is only a 2 layer not impedance matched design for the diff. pairs. I needed it very fast, so I only used about 2 hours to design and order.



I also created a simple receiver to use with this cape.



I tested it yesterday and I am very satisfied with the result. I tested it with FPP 5.2, every output and the display worked. And no more lag in my show.

Maybe someone find this stuff useful.

The sources are available on GitHub: https://github.com/3komma3volt/bbb-diffcape

Greets
Bepa

 

[Martin Mueller]

Very Nice. Also, if you want to reduce the lag on the ESPs to zero, you use V4 and run them in FPP Remote mode. That reduces your network traffic to almost nothing and by extension the lag you were experiencing. Just put an SD card with the fseq files on it into the ESP and go.