Falcons or kulp boards

Bradbaker

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Afternoon everyone, I took last year off lights and I’m back in this year . Where do you buy controllers from these days ?
thank you Brad
 

Skymaster

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I'm going Hanson for my first show this year. 2x HE123's one with differential outputs, and 1x DMX2-24 for the Bunnings strings.
All seem quite good with the playing around I've done so far!
 
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AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Yeah they're pretty good, can do some cool stuff, pretty sure they sell the only board that can run the 2 wire bunnings lights xD
Only "boards" actually as I have 3 that will do them. The next step is to decode the 2 wire pixel protocol that Bunnings sell and work out a controller for them too.
 

djgra79

My name is Graham & I love flashing lights!
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I have been doing some quick research myself for a new megatree controller. Note for future reference the above pricing was as of Jan 2022.
I already had a J1sys P2 (top line) and I don't think you can get them anymore but wanted to compare its pixel count capabilities.
Falcons lead the pack as far as number of pixels they can control, but sometimes that may be too much for what you need (but great for future expansion) but if budget is tight there are smaller options in Kulp & Hanson, but both of which require additional BBB/RaspPi hardware also.
 

Christmas on Clarafield

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I have been doing some quick research myself for a new megatree controller. Note for future reference the above pricing was as of Jan 2022.
I already had a J1sys P2 (top line) and I don't think you can get them anymore but wanted to compare its pixel count capabilities.
Falcons lead the pack as far as number of pixels they can control, but sometimes that may be too much for what you need (but great for future expansion) but if budget is tight there are smaller options in Kulp & Hanson, but both of which require additional BBB/RaspPi hardware also.
I like this info @djgra79 although is this all in $Aus or is that $US for the Falcon/Kulp?
 

Skymaster

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HE123 with two expansions (assuming HE123-PX) will give you a total cost of
$120 (HE123) + $90 (BBB) + 2x $33 (he123-px) = $276 AU
for 48 x 800 = 38400 pixels
so $0.007 per pixel
The flexibility here is that the two add-on boards could be differentials giving you 8 diff outputs with 4x pixel outputs per diff socket.

Also - F4v3 at 16000 pixels seems a bit high, aren't they 1024 per port - 4 ports - so 4096 pixels total? Or 12880 with the expansion (not costed?)
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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The number of pixels on the HE123, rpi-28D+ and presumably the Kulp board is dependent on whether it's at 40fps or 20fps. They are 800 pixels per outputs at 40fps or 1600 at 20fps. For the full 48 outputs at 1600 pixels per output it's 76,800 pixels or $0.0036 per pixel. You would of course need more than 4000A in power supply current output to max it out. That's 50kW at 12V or 20kW at 5V. Assuming 400W supplies that's about 125 12V supplies or 50 5V supplies. The cost of the power supplies and the pixels are going to be MUCH higher than the cost of the controller.
 
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