Hardware Setups for Testing Small Scale

mangoat

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Hey people

Just wondering what sort of setups you use on a test bench to test all your contructions, during the build?

I currently have 1x p12s setup, but its a lot too bulky and annoying to set up to test 1 small build.

What sort of thing could i use for this testing, that is still the same function as the p12?

I would like to make it into a small enclosure, housing the power supply and related hardware and ill put a terminal strip for easy connection and also probably some pig tails too.

Any help would be muchly appreciated.

Regards,
Goat.
 

Habbosrus

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I'm not up on the P12 specs but I think you could look at a Pixlite 4 from Advatek or possibly an E6804 from Sandevices. Both are small form factor and easy to use.
 

damo1271

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Depending exactly what you want to do as part of your test, you could use an Arduino and set up a test sequence that can be triggered by the press of a button.
(that is what I am planning on building for next year!)
 

fasteddy

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A bit of warning is that what may work in testing may not work correctly when setup in the display as many people have already learnt
 

mangoat

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got some examples???? im more talking like, as im building stuff, i just wanna make sure my connections work, etc .... ???

but what sort of things have gone wrong?
 

fasteddy

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Electrical interference causing pixels to flicker due to the cables acting like antennas and thus not getting as long a distance before needing a dummy pixel is a common one.
So some have seen that the distance their cable could run was reduced when in the actual installation with the show running as apposed to when bench testing
I have seen this myself in the past
 

mangoat

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yeap, i understand all that. im not so worried about that stuff at this stage, as im just starting out and all my control boxes are AT the point of the item at this stage. but i take all that into account and i understand the risks with testing and stuff.

its more to make sure it actually works, i spent forever soldering strip together, which failed when i put it on my p12, i could test it section by section and know 100% where the issues are i guess.

thats what im looking at.

thanks for your guidance.

the item you linked would be best for what i want to do then????

cheers.
 

dale82

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I know what eddy means, the stuff that I have soldered myself I tested on a P12 to make sure that it all worked but when I set it up I had section that failed.
 

battle79

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If you don't care about being able to control it directly, and just want to see if the pixels can take a SPI signal and change colors correctly, then you need this little guy:-

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/DC5V-Mini-RF-Wireless-WS2811-WS2812B-TM1804-TM1809-INK1003-Dream-Color-Controller-2048pixels-controlled/701799_1557950197.html

or

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/DC12V-Mini-RF-Wireless-WS2811-WS2812B-TM1804-TM1809-INK1003-Dream-Color-Controller-2048pixels-controlled/701799_1557993596.html

I just use this as my data into a ray wu plug and run power from supply through a fuse and into said plug. I built one for 5V & 12V, but in hind sight I could have used just one as the data could be split to a 12V and 5V plug (would still need two PSUs). Make sure you don't put too many amps directly through the controller, I let the smoke out of one that way. Can confirm that they control up to 1200 pixels as it was testing half my tree.

They have an amazing array of effects built in for $7. I have built a few props for other people that wanted something and used these so they can still play with the control of it. From memory I think every effect is based off of 12 or 16 pixel blocks, so you can build around this create interesting effects.

Oh and make sure you get the RF ones and not the IR ones. IR is only line of sight and therefore annoying.

Cheers,
Rowan
 

Benslights

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the DP2 I think is the best of all as you can do pixels and dumb rgb also off the dmx side or even use one of AAH 2811DC30 with it
 

Gilrock

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I use a ECG-P2 with the aluminum housing he sells for testing strings. It fits in your hand and since you already use a P12S the configuration pages will be familiar to you since its another j1sys product. I saw the DP2 recommended but I couldn't look it up at work cause the link got blocked so it sounded like that would work also and might be easier for you to get based on your location.
 
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