Need connection help!

[Mr. Krash]

How to connect
7 - 12v 100 node strings (megatree) Input only pigtails to a
Falcon f16v3, Xlights and falcon pp
Do i connect lights to controller 1 thru 7 outputs?
Do i cut the last node and connect strings together to use less controller ports?
How many Universes? Ports?
I read so much different stuff that its starting to look chinesse to me!!!
Any help will be appresiated

 

[franky_888]

There's so much to assume here as there's very little detail in your post for me to give you exacting answers, but I'll have a go

You haven't mentioned how you've designed your tree. Is it going to be 50 up and 50 down with 14 total strands? or 100 up and 100 down and 7 strands? Or something different again?

7 - 12v 100 node strings (megatree) Input only pigtails to a
Falcon f16v3, Xlights and falcon pp

You're going to have 700 pixels, that's going to use 466.20W worst-case, you won't get that out of a standard 350W power supply, but you haven't mentioned what power supply or how many of them you might have.

If you have two power supplies, you could connect one power to each side of the F16v3 and plug 4 into one side and 3 into the other. Make sure you check the jumpers on the F16 before you connect the power supplies or you could let the magic smoke out.

Here's a power usage calculator, book mark it for future use https://www.da-share.com/calculators/led-strip-string-current/

Do i connect lights to controller 1 thru 7 outputs?

You can, but xlights will want consecutive controller ports to use on your F16 if you want to be able to push your config to the controller easily. If you need to balance power between both sides, you may want to use ports 5,6,7,8 on one side and 9,10,11 on the other.

Do i cut the last node and connect strings together to use less controller ports?

You can, in fact many do, but you need to know how to power inject so that the lights have enough power.

Here's another link that may be useful: http://spikerlights.com/calcpower.aspx

Judging by your current questions I think power injection may be out of your reach for this year. Being that you have an F16v3 with 16 usable ports and you only need 7 for this, use 7 ports this year and work towards 'optimising' port usage next year. Keep in mind though, the more you string together, the more of your show will go out when there's a pixel failure.

How many Universes? Ports?

Each node (light) will have one Red, Green and Blue LED, each of these is 1 channel (3 channels per node), each universe has 512 channels. 700 pixels will be 2100 channels (700x3) and 4.1 universes (2100/512)

Download and read the 101 Manual. Put it down and come back to it later and it might sink in some more.

 

[Mr. Krash]

Frankie 888 you are very helpful thank you very much. Sorry i was not specific. Megatree is 700 pixels 50 up/down 100 x 7
Thanx for the links too

 

[Mr. Krash]

I have 2 Mean well 12v 29a.