I am using Vixen 3, this is my first time using pixels and I am still trying to come to terms with the software.
I have tried LOR and LSP but found them both painful, Vixen 3 just seems to make sense to me. But when I get more elements and start work on my full display, I may try them all again.
Thanks. Did you wire the strips from the bottom of the tree? I made some meteors and used Vixen as well, but effects like meteor moved from the bottom of the meteors up. I assumed this was because pixel 1 was at the top of my meteors, whereas I think the effect assumed pixel one was at the bottom...if that makes sense
The feed started on the left from the bottom, the strip is cut in the middle at 2.5mtr and a small wire link soldered (and sealed) in. Then the signal travels back down from the top to bottom on the second strip. At the bottom of the second run I then injected additional DC power and the feed then goes up on 3 and back down on 4 and so on.
At the end of string 8 I finished with a final power injection, this was fed from one port of the Pixelite 4 (600 pixels in total, one port will only support 680 pixels).
The whole things was then repeated for the second side for another 8 strips using a second port on the pixelate 4.
I will take some close up photos of the wire links and feeds tomorrow and add to this thread, a couple of close ups might be of interest to some people.
It does not matter if you feed from the top or bottom, in my design the signal is zig/zaging all the way across, I just map the pixels to the controller using Vixen so it knows which way the feed is, each vertical strip was mapped individually and on the downward strips I just checked the "reversed" box and bingo, all done, easy
Here are a couple of photos of the business end of my new tree.
Image 1 shows the top of the tree, the LED strips have a short wire loop going from the top of the first strip to the top of the second and so on as previously noted, so the power and signal travel up on the left and down on the right for each alternate pair of strips.
Image 2 shows the cables on the bottom, the left socket accepts power and data in, the next 3 connectors are power injection points with the data passing through. The last socket on the right also receives one final input of power injection.
The cables are soldered and sealed with clear heat shrink and silicon. The cables appear long but are now cable tied to the frame and very neat. The use of all the sockets allows me to change out a faulty strip pair quickly should it be required during the xmas display, I have made up 1 pair of strips pre wired as spares, so it is only a 5 minute job to completely replace a strip pair if required.
This last photo shows the reversed option I use in Vixen 3 for all the downward strips when they are mapped to the controller.