My own Las Vegas ceiling, my megatree suspended in the basement.

smeighan

smeighan

Dedicated elf
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Messages
1,109
Location
4217 Greenfinch Dr CO 80126
I finished building a mounting rack for my 20x120 flex strips used in my megatree. they flex lights are mounted on 1/2" emt. The rack is 12'x5' in size and made of 1x4" pine. I mounted the rack to the ceiling of my basement. Think of it like a giant gun rack. After putting 20 of my lights in the rack, it was heavy! Probably over 100 lbs. I built the rack strong with angle brackets because i knew it needed strength.


I now have my own Vegas strip. Running nutcracker effects i just have to look up to see what they look like.


I put some felt down to protect the flex strip. It all seems to be working fine.


My desk is right below these lights. I create a new Nutcracker effect, I just have to look up to see what it really looks like.


Thanks
sean




IMG_0257a.jpg



IMG_0263a.jpg



IMG_0265a.jpg
 
Thats cool Sean. Im going to do that in my room next weekend.
 
Looks great Sean. Nice way to store those safely.
I take it that the PVC cylinders are the power supplies for the strips? Did you use 5 volt or 12 volt strips for the design? It looks like your strips are the 3 LEDs per 1 IC? I would guess then that it is 12 volt stuff.
Do you have some pictures of your tree when it was set up that you can share? Please?

The cylinders contain the smart string controller. In Pixelnet:


E1.31 => Etherdongle => Pixelnet => (3) 16 port hubs. => Cat 5 cable goes to each string. The cat 5 cable also has 12v in it. The flex strips are 1809. Each IC drives 9 leds or 3 pixel nodes. i have 120 nodes on my flex strips, all are addressable.


The 450w PC power supply and the 16 port hub are inside the battery container. I bought the marine battery containers at Wal-Mart for $8 us.


In the last picture where the flex strips are lit up, you can see the battery container on the shelf. Since there are 8 universes or 16 strings per hub, i needed two hubs. There are two batter containers side by side on that shelf.


In Pixelnet the hubs have drivers on all the lines that can go 300m. Great if you need to go far, the downside is you need the receivers at the other end. What is inside of the white pvc are the receivers. Those receivers cost $10 each.
 
Ah, okay. Pixelnet.
Had not considered that but now I see!
Thank you for the explanation of things.

WooHoo - my 100th post on ACL too!
 
Whats pixelnet ?

Is this it or something else
Product Description. THE DISTRIBUTED DISPLAY WALL SYSTEM. PixelNet® is a revolutionary new way to capture, distribute, control and display digital
 
ɟɐsʇǝppʎ said:
Nice Sean, but there is always that one strip that doesnt want to behave.
Click to expand...


Yep, I just got it built and was checking things out. I had a bad channel assignment. Now all 20 are working flawlessly.


they sreu are bright, i will need sunglasses while i am programming....
 
Pixelnet is restricted to using the 180x pixels and is in kit form and bought in a group buys, but i tend to think why buy something that has limitations and needs to be built that will cost you more than the option currently already offered. So its been an option thats been overlooked in the past as its an option that is mainly targeted at the US mainland. In the end it runs your pixels so its still a valid alternative, just not much info here on ACL about it.
Plus the DLA forum is pretty closed to any outside influence or linking to other forums so many of the DLA users have no real idea of other alternatives or other forums.
 
i took about a minute of the matrix mounted on the ceiling of my basement.


video quality not the highest but you get the idea.
https://vimeo.com/61862629
 
I really like that idea for storage as well as testing.
Gives me an idea for a twist on your design. (if I ever get moved to a new location)
Thanks for sharing :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top