Need help with alphapix 16 V3

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Maklights1

New elf
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Jan 8, 2025
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I am 14 years old and new to the hobbie, I was given 2 alphapix 16 V3 controllers from another local light show and recently tried pluging in my pixels to the controller. I found that only outputs 1-8 were working in test mode and even when they were working they were green when the were supposed to be red and vise versa. I tested my pixels with my LOR pixie 8 and the were fine, the controller is 12 volts and my pixels are 12 volts and both are ws2811. The red indicator light is blinking (its not connected to a network yet) and the leftmost green indicator light is steady on. I am posting this to find out posible solutions for my problems. Cheers.
 
How did you test? Have you been to the controller's web page to look at how the ports are set up? Or did you set it up from xLights? There are settings for color order and number of pixels, and these things could keep it from working.

We might have to go back a little and go through everything, as these problems can have more than one cause... Screen shots of all the places you are setting things up may also help. And a photo of the board and connections, so we can be sure you have applied power to both banks of pixel outputs.
 
I was using the integrated testing built into the lcd screen of the controller. I have not found out how to access the web interface yet. Now that you mention it i think the bank i am having trouble with is not connected to the power supply but i am not certain. Would i be able to run both banks off of this power supply? (Photos linked)
 

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Maklights1 said:
Now that you mention it i think the bank i am having trouble with is not connected to the power supply but i am not certain. Would i be able to run both banks off of this power supply? (Photos linked)
Click to expand...
You are correct in that it's not connected. Yes you can run both off the one PSU. Be aware, however, when it comes to your actual display, you'll want to calculate the correct power requirements and ensure you have sufficient power for all your pixels.
 
I would connect the power to the other bank also, but as Sky suggests, one PSU like that is not enough to power all ports at full amps at once. That can be dealt with later, by adding a bigger PSU, or stacking them (if they'll fit). Or you may not need to do this at all, if you are only running an amp or two per port. To be dealt with later.

The next thing to do is to get the web interface up. That is a much easier way to deal with the color order, etc. All you'll need to do is set the networking, plug in to the networking, and use a browser.
 
Plug a cable into the jack on the left that says "Ethernet". Then you'll need to plug the other end in to a network switch. It depends what else you have around. You can use the front display and the buttons to set a network address, or it could DHCP if it is just plugged into your home network. If you take note of the address, you can use that to connect from another device on the same network.

So what do you have available? We can come up with a plan then.
 
as of now I only have a home router because last year i used LOR with the rs485 adapter with no fancy networks. What network switch do you recommend is the best to get? My budget is around $200
 
I see. I switched over to these switches https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0863M7C1L but you could use https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ethernet-Splitter-Unmanaged-TL-SF1005D/dp/B000FNFSPY.

You might not even have to go that far, if you have an unused Ethernet jack on your laptop you could plug in to one controller at a time for testing purposes. You can also plug it into an Ethernet port on your home router for testing purposes. Which way do you want to start out? That will help us figure out how to set up the networking, whether it should get and address from the router or whether we should set it up with a fixed IP.
 
I want to start out by just plugging the controller into my router, i already have a DHCP ip configured to my home network, but I don’t really know what to do from there.
 
OK, plug it in to your router. You will need to use the buttons and the display to make sure DHCP is enabled on the Alphapix.

This guy is doing something similar, hopefully you can navigate the menus similarly. https://www.morganlights.com/Christ...onfiguring-the-alphapix-4-controller-video-i/

You will do the opposite thing, set it to DHCP instead of setting a static IP. But there is some chance you will want static IP in the future, so don't forget about these instructions.

Once it says DHCP-YES, you should be able to boot it and it will get an address.

Use the buttons and screen to figure out what address that is.

Then go there with the browser.
 
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