F16V3 Box Build Help Required

Baf05

Full time elf
Joined
Dec 15, 2012
Messages
249
Location
Canberra
I have a F16V3 and two 16port expansion boards. I am in the process of trying to design a box build but powering it all his me kind of confused.

I plan to run each port on the main board at 424 pixels and both expansion boards at 300 pixels each, however the most the main board will ever run is 300, so pretty much each port will run 300 pixels.


To keep it simple I will run 2 universes per output with 150 pixels per universe. (hopefully)


My bigger question is powering this config, assuming 300 pixels per output that’s 2400 pixels on V1 or V2, that’s a big load on one power supply! From experience I know I need to power inject some of my props, and I can do that from a separate power supply, but that’s is still going to leave the power supply on V1/V2 carrying a large load as is powering at least the first few pixels of 8 different props.


Now not each port is going to power 300 pixels, but a lot are. Is it enough to let V1/V2 power those 8 port and add injection for support?


Or should I be looking at just having the V2 of the main board power the boards via the ribbon cable and set up my own fuse array to ensure that no power supply is powering more pixels than it should.


(which would necessitate a regig of props to isolate power supply’s… and that’s another issue!)


How do other achieve stable power delivery assuming a full board?


Thanks in advance for your assistance.
 

scamper

Dedicated elf
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
1,225
Location
collie
Personally I only power very small props from the board, such as a 15 pixels staff on my nutcracker. Otherwise I only connect the data lines to the board and all the power is 'injected' down the line.
This serves 2 purposes. 1. I never need worry about overloading and damaging the board. 2. I can change where different props go with relative ease as I have 12v and 5v props, so I can run combinations in the same half of the board.
 

drakky

Senior elf
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
515
300 pixels = approx 17 amps you'll need power injection no matter what , personally I'd not use the power of the main/expansion boards and just use the F8 distro boards ,if you blow a distro board it's no biggie (even if you have no spares just run down to the auto parts shop and grab a fuse block) if you blow a controller board then you loose your whole show, the only place I'm running power off the any board is from differential expansion boards purely because of the amount of room in the box but I have plenty of spares. Also I know it's not best practice but most likely you won't be running the pixels at full brightness most of mine is running at 40% my mega tree at full white is 75 amps (1360 pixels) but it's running at 20% so using about 15 amps I'm considering running it just off 1 350w supply
 
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