Pixels aren't bright enough

Gilrock

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Jan 4, 2013
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Tucson, AZ
I finally pulled my Pixlite16 out of the box because I was troubleshooting why my pixel strings were flashing on my J1SYS P12S card. First problem I had was the only manual on the website didn't seem to match my board. It talked about jumpers that I don't have. I don't have my board in front of me but it looks like the photo I see on the website for v3.4. I only have 1 jumper near a DMX output.

Anyways the strings I'm driving are 5V WS2811 rectangular pixels from Ray Wu. I was having flashing issues using the P12S so I thought I'd pull out the Pixlite16 and give it a try. Got the boards swapped out and got it running and the flashing was gone but I could swear the pixels didn't seem as bright as I had been seeing with the P12S. My box has two 5V power supplies so I rigged it up to power up both boards at the same time to compare. The Pixlite16 pixel brightness is only 25% to 30% of the P12S driving the same strings. Power supply voltages were 5.32v and 5.25v.

The strange thing is the flashing problem seemed to go away on the P12S so I reconfigured the box to driving everything using it and now the P12S seems to be working fine. Not sure why. I had been changing a lot of settings like trying different speeds. Originally I had 3000 and I settled at 2400 based on other posts. Maybe I had a loose wire and moving the boards around fixed a data line or something.

Anyways back to the Pixlite16 I tried moving the gamma slider all the way to the right in the Assistant program and it didn't seem to affect the pixel brightness at all so I assumed that setting didn't apply to my pixel type and yes I had the type set to 2811 in the assistant settings. I saw a bunch of posts comparing this board with a competitors board and the funny thing is nobody talked about which one actually makes the pixels look better. I don't care much about price and warranty and shipping but you mess with my pixel brightness and I'm not a happy camper. That and you got the CLK and DATA lines backwards on the pinout. Everything I've built is wired the other way around and works on every other controller I own. Can we get some standards folks?
 

i13

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Jul 5, 2013
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Devo has listed brightness control as a relatively new feature in the first post here along with a few manuals in a link. http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=7272.0
Try the PixLite Configuration Guide. It shows the intensity limit in the Advanced String Configuration menu.

It does sound as though you've read up on the PixLite but worth posting just in case. I'm no expert though.
 

Gilrock

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I have not looked at any info on this website for the board yet. I just went straight to the Advatek website. I was trying to get ready for a small show I gotta do in 8 days so when my P12S didn't seem to be working right I was in panic mode trying to test out other options. If there is a setting to increase the brightness then great but I would expect the defaults to be higher.
 

ron d

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Aug 21, 2010
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Camp Hill, Pennsylvania
Hey Gil, Cover the shipping both ways and I would be happy to send you some samples of a couple minleon controllers as well as a couple light options. No need to buy, just sample and would appreciate the feedback if your interested.
 

Gilrock

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Jan 4, 2013
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Tucson, AZ
ron d said:
Hey Gil, Cover the shipping both ways and I would be happy to send you some samples of a couple minleon controllers as well as a couple light options. No need to buy, just sample and would appreciate the feedback if your interested.

I am interested in checking out that hardware some time. I'd want to wait till I wasn't bogged down with other deadlines. I'd like to make sure when I borrowed it that I had time to use it to develop ArtNet support for xLights. But the main reason I hadn't tried to look into the Minleon hardware further for my personal display is because I have everything setup for E1.31 running from the FPP so I didn't think it would fit in alongside my existing equipment.
 

ltay13

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Eastern Melbourne
Hi Gil,


You can download the manual for your controller from here http://www.advateklights.com/resources/download-category/manuals/


There are 2 manuals, one for the newer rev 3.5 boards and one for all the previous controllers.


There shouldn't be any brightness limiting unless you explicitly turn it on though. First thing I'd check is are you running the latest Advatek Assistant (V2.1.9) and the latest firmware (V1.4.5)? If not, I'd recommend upgrading both, doing a factory reset and then trying again. You should see intensity limits in the advanced section and by default they should all be 100%.


To do a factory reset, hold down both the Factory IP and Bootloader buttons and then power the controller on. After the lights start flashing together, release the buttons and power the controller off and on again.
 

Gilrock

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Ok I see what happened regarding the manuals. There are only 4 manuals visible on the initial page and I didn't see the link where it said Manuals (6).

The first thing I did was updated the firmware to v1.4.5 before I started and I did hold buttons down for a factory reset. I got the assistant application from the website yesterday so I'm assuming it was up to date.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to look into this more.
 

ltay13

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Have you tried other outputs or just the one? Seems silly but if it's just the one, have you checked the voltage at the start of the string of lights? Have you checked the fuse?
 
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