Greetings from Ohio!

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MrMightyMouse94

New elf
Joined
Oct 27, 2022
Messages
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Hello all,

Greetings from Ohio, US. I'm 27, turning 28 in December. I'm a Senior Data Analyst, I love tinkering with electronics, and I LOVE Christmas. I started looking at Pixel Displays years ago but never got the courage to dive in. Well, next year Christmas 2023, I want to put on my first show; Starting small with a roof outline, window outlines, floodlights, and yard props, and a small mega tree.

I'm struggling what I will outlines for. Bullet Pixels are something like C9 Pixels. I'm interested to see what other's used. Modifications to the home may be an issue with my fiance. He's not to apt for somethings, lol. You know how that goes.

I'm also still struggling with power injection and the respective calculations, as well as how to utilize smart receivers. Big thanks to the PDF file here, that help put things in perspective but it would be interesting to see what other resources others are/have using.

Regards,

MrMightyMouse
 
I love doing things the easy way, so I do all 12V and don't bother with PI much.

I use several form factors for "Outlines".

C9. Good for long runs, like all the way around the roof, or yard. I have them snapped into a strip to keep the spacing and direction consistent. Pleasant look, but not as dense or bright as the others.

Globes. Similar to C9, but they are just on strings on hooks, as my old AC lights were. Less organized appearance, which could be considered charming I guess, if you warm up the whites.

Bullets. Used around windows, doors, and verticals... quite bright, but appear discrete. Easy to get precise dimensions, mounted in thin coro.

Strips in diffuser channel... bright, but a lot harder to see the individual LEDs. The ones I have are only cut to half-meter precision. Using them for railings, vericals, and windows (but they do not make a full rectangle frame like the bullets, due to being cut every half meter). Can be quite svelte depending on mounting.
 
I suggest looking through the ACL Media and Forum archive. The Forum archive has numerous discussions regarding power injection, calculating wattages/amperages for wire and supply sizing, etc. The Media section has a good number of 'walk throughs' of displays showing how the display was assembled/constructed. Both sections are searchable and can help provide design ideas as well as solutions to encountered problems.
 
merryoncherry said:
I love doing things the easy way, so I do all 12V and don't bother with PI much.

I use several form factors for "Outlines".

C9. Good for long runs, like all the way around the roof, or yard. I have them snapped into a strip to keep the spacing and direction consistent. Pleasant look, but not as dense or bright as the others.

Globes. Similar to C9, but they are just on strings on hooks, as my old AC lights were. Less organized appearance, which could be considered charming I guess, if you warm up the whites.

Bullets. Used around windows, doors, and verticals... quite bright, but appear discrete. Easy to get precise dimensions, mounted in thin coro.

Strips in diffuser channel... bright, but a lot harder to see the individual LEDs. The ones I have are only cut to half-meter precision. Using them for railings, vericals, and windows (but they do not make a full rectangle frame like the bullets, due to being cut every half meter). Can be quite svelte depending on mounting.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much! How do you keep it simple and easy, do you just power with mostly smart receivers then. I know it varies from person to person, but what percentage do you typically run your show on.
 
I keep it simple and easy by powering everything on the cables from the controller (or differential receiver), or 3-pin cables just like those... only one box of cables to rummage in.

I mostly use the 12V resistor pixel, so you can run 300ish per port of those at 100%, 20ft from the controller. A lot of ports have less, like a snowflake with 150 pixels, so that's just one cable to it. There are times when it helps to add power to the far end of the string, once you get over 200, if you do want to do 100% white. For that, I have some 3-pin tees M-M-F, I pull the data pin out, and run power from the tee to the far end of the string; whole thing goes on one controller port. The tees a bit bulky but I can usually tuck them in, very easy to work with in the field. For 400 pixels per port, which I do on one matrix, I have a special long range receiver I assembled with dedicated male connectors to plug into the far end of the string to split power across 2 cables. This receiver is right near the end of the matrix, 5' pigtails.

There are exceptions. For those there are M-F-F tees to slip in the line. I have window frames done this way.

I have a bit of 5V, those are only 32 strings of 50 on a megatree, so that has its own 32 port controller, no PI. Some more 5V coming this xmas, but the topology here is all out-and-back so the PI is done with 4-pin tees.

I have 12V regulated peace stakes, icicles, and some other stuff, you can't do much over 100 pixels on a port with those, but they're on 16-port smart receivers, and by the time you divide up the data, you only get 150 pixels per port anyway. No sense in doing a PI scheme that supports more pixels per port than you can control.

I do run everything at 100%, but recall it is the lower-power pixels. Exceptions:
5m strips get 40%, they can't handle current of 100% and the data drops out.
Baby Grand Illusion gets 80%. It is so dense, it is otherwise a bit brighter than the things around it.

Also everyone on the site scolds me for running 100%. This is a bit of a camera trick, it doesn't look so blinding in real life (as you can tell by the streetlight), and nobody has complained.

20221022_184632.jpg

It's not my approach, but people who want to run 40% on 12V resistor pixels can just hook 400 up to the controller port and be done with it, no PI. People who want to do 5V at full power put a PI point every 100 pixels, often by soldering, so nothing is over 50 pixels from heavy gauge power line.
 
@MrMightyMouse94 : Have a son that resides in Huber so I'm in that area every so often. Dayton does have a rather good air show, one of the better ones in the US I think. Having the Wright Patterson AFB Museum nearby helps too I suspect.

Regarding RGB pixels, I would suggest beginning small until you have a better feel for what works for you; personal taste/preferences and skillset. Some individuals power their pixels all from a controller, others, no power from the controller (all pixels power injected), and other individuals a combination of controller powered and power injection. I'm one of those who design with pixel power directly from a supply and the controller is data and a V- (for data reference) only. Not too relevant but testing on a bench it's not uncommon I have only the data from the controller but everything is in close proximity so I'm not very concerned about losing the data signal V- reference.

While looking back I can't quite put a finger on how it happened, the Easter props I put out are 5 Volt while the Christmas stuff is mostly 12 Volt Regulated with some 12 Volt Resistor. If/when the resistor pixels die, regulated pixels will be moved into their place. Obviously I prefer 12 Volt Regulated or 5 Volt pixels.

As I had mentioned, search the ACL Forums. Discussions abound regarding the questions you have asked. Also check the videos on Youtube; Canispater Christmas is particularly good I think.
 
The idea of having the controller far from the pixels and only sending data has some merit, but as a taker of the easy way, I use controllers with differential ports and receivers for that. That way all the stuff is mass produced, which is more reliable... still leaves a bit of room to say it was DIY but not much. 20221029_143910.jpg
 
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