Hot pixel

Chrisekert

New elf
Joined
Dec 27, 2020
Messages
41
Hi guys - we are’s testing our 50pc 12 v strings and noticed a lot of them the last pixel is either off or different colour and gets very hot ? Are they simply faulty . Running one string on each channel of falcon
 

darylc

404 darylc not found
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Dec 8, 2012
Messages
1,146
is the output wire from that last pixel shorted out somehow or something?
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
Community project designer
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Dec 27, 2010
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12V pixels are evil (opinion). There's a site that has been setup for tracking and reporting issues with pixels https://www.pixel.report/
There was actually a live stream including some Q+A recently but from a quick search I can't see that it's been uploaded yet.
 

janastas

Full time elf
Joined
Nov 30, 2020
Messages
120
Thanks @AAH,

I had a read through that 2020 report, lots of points to go through but a few things that stuck in my head were two things.

Cracked epoxy resin causing water to get into the circuit and the other was overheating.

I'm in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and we we can get extreme weather on either end of the sprectrum.

Is your big issue re: 12V pixels because of the extra heat dissipation or something else?
 

Chrisekert

New elf
Joined
Dec 27, 2020
Messages
41
Thanks @AAH,

I had a read through that 2020 report, lots of points to go through but a few things that stuck in my head were two things.

Cracked epoxy resin causing water to get into the circuit and the other was overheating.

I'm in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and we we can get extreme weather on either end of the sprectrum.

Is your big issue re: 12V pixels because of the extra heat dissipation or something else?
Brand new out of the box - just plugged in to test
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
Community project designer
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Messages
4,188
Location
Eaglehawk
Thanks @AAH,

I had a read through that 2020 report, lots of points to go through but a few things that stuck in my head were two things.

Cracked epoxy resin causing water to get into the circuit and the other was overheating.

I'm in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and we we can get extreme weather on either end of the sprectrum.

Is your big issue re: 12V pixels because of the extra heat dissipation or something else?

I missed the start of the presentation as I got am/pm mixed up as it was in US time and I didn't convert right. I had hoped that the talk addressed something that has concerned me about 12V nodes. It's a known fact that the pixel wire advertised isn't the real size and that was brought up in the talk. 1 of my pet hates/concerns with 12V nodes is that they are intentionally overloaded by stringing 100's on pixels together until the voltage drop gets to the point where they no longer work. It's also common to go past that point and reduce the brightness so that more pixels can be strung on. This means that there is a fairly common 9V drop in voltage along the pixel string. The first pixels will have a current typically well in excess of what the cable is really rated for and with 2 and a half times the power usage per pixel the pixel is already hotter than it needs to be without the proximity to the hot wire. The cracked/faulty epoxy seems to be the difference between combustible pixels and just hot pixels. The cracks appear to be allowing the oxygen in for combustion. I actually look forward to seeing the entire video when it gets released and further followups on the pixel.report site.

Even without the combustible nature of 12V nodes I'm against them. They are dearer than 5V pixels, they produce the same amount of light as 5V pixels, they cost 2.4 (12/5) times as much to run them and you need 2.4 times the power supplies to run a given quantity. The ONLY thing going for 12V nodes is the ability to run longer strings without power injection. The longer strings are easier but not better :(
 
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