Cutting Dumb RGB strings in half

[jaredo]

Hi guys,

I've got plans of essentially rebuilding my show with smart + dumb pixels and I've nutted everything out. And one question is on my mind..

I was wondering if it's possible to cut a dumb RGB string in half?
Is current limiting done at each led? or at certain sections in the string?

It was possible to do this with normal single color LED string (Big W strings) where you could cut every 25-27 leds, the first led had a resistor, 27th had a resistor and so on..

The reason I want to do this is 100 pixels is wayyy to many for a reindeer and mini tree, these existing elements have 50 leds each (or around that) and that's literally the perfect amount.

Thanks for any help.

 

[i13]

Yes you can cut the dumb RGB strings between any two LEDs.

 

[mborg10]

The reason I want to do this is 100 pixels is wayyy to many for a reindeer and mini tree, these existing elements have 50 leds each (or around that) and that's literally the perfect amount.

I'd do some more thinking about using dumb vs smart strip.

Talk2coxie uses a lot of dumb strip and modules in his show (one of my fav shows BTW) and his comment is if you want to control different sections of dumb you have to run a lot more cables. Each section has to go back to the controller. Personally for me the less cables the neater everything looks.

If you run it all in smart and pair it with say a j1sys P2 you can have 680 pixels with one data cable, power injection required of course.

Then you can break the sections up in the software. Really easy with elements in LSP to do this..

What this means is with things like a reindeer is you can do things like make one nose flash red or mini trees can spin or have fades or chases and it's all done in the software.

Just some food for thought

 

[Benslights]

could not agree with you more Michael

 

[jaredo]

Talk2coxie uses a lot of dumb strip and modules in his show (one of my fav shows BTW) and his comment is if you want to control different sections of dumb you have to run a lot more cables. Each section has to go back to the controller. Personally for me the less cables the neater everything looks.

If you run it all in smart and pair it with say a j1sys P2 you can have 680 pixels with one data cable, power injection required of course.

Thanks Michael. I definitely rethink going smart pixels in place of dumb pixels for a number of elements.

Doing the reindeer in smart pixels makes sense, these fellas (9 of) are pitched up on the roof and currently require 30M of cable to hook up. It's enticing to string them together with half as many cables & have infinitely more control over them.

A personal pref for me is a lot less cabling. When I built my existing control system I made it centralized - one place for everything. It works well but the issue is cabling, it got out of hand as the show grew... there is a lot lol. even with multi-core cable I still have hundreds of meters haha.

Thanks for your valuable input, much appreciated