Pixels in parallel yet still addressable

[Grozzy]

Righto i'll get a photo when I get home Expect a round white PCB with 20 outputs all linked together. No electrical components top or bottom layer, a controller with 4 wires marked + - D L and a pair of wires going to a plug for the star as well as the 5v + - feed coming into the tree ( for some reason it doesn't go through the controller)
L and - go to the star as as they are controlled by a mosfet to switch the star off when the power button is pressed.

At some point @Notenoughlights is going to say FFS, can you two @AAH and @Grozzy just go to Bunnings and buy one.

 

[Notenoughlights]

At some point @Notenoughlights is going to say FFS, can you two @AAH and @Grozzy just go to Bunnings and buy one.

Now thats an idea.......

 

[AAH]

Now thats an idea.......

Out of curiosity is this the tree? https://www.bunnings.com.au/mirabel...i-colour-flashing-tinsel-pop-up-tree_p0263277
$99 from Bunnings vs $125 from Aliexpress. At $99 I reckon that they are a fairly great price.

 

[Notenoughlights]

Out of curiosity is this the tree? https://www.bunnings.com.au/mirabel...i-colour-flashing-tinsel-pop-up-tree_p0263277
$99 from Bunnings vs $125 from Aliexpress. At $99 I reckon that they are a fairly great price.

Yep that's the tree exactly. $99 here as well, great price.

 

[Notenoughlights]

@AAH Here's some photos for you, hope I didn't over hype it

Back of PCB
View: https://i.imgur.com/yYi4NIb.jpg


Front of PCB - Clear cable is the star connector attached to the far right wire (L) of the 4 core cable. The 2 core cable to the right of the 4 core cable is the power input from a USB connector
View: https://i.imgur.com/xU5d2w8.jpg



View: https://i.imgur.com/8zYyUoH.jpg
showing data/negative track

 

[AAH]

Nothing to see there
They really missed an opportunity to simplify things by putting in the smarts in that top pcb. They could have simply used identical strings for every position and even made it as 1 continuous string and chopped to suit.

Now that we know most of everything there is to know about this little beastie there is 1 more thing that I'd like to know.
Any chance that you could send some 100% white at the tree and measure what the current is.

 

[Notenoughlights]

Nothing to see there
They really missed an opportunity to simplify things by putting in the smarts in that top pcb. They could have simply used identical strings for every position and even made it as 1 continuous string and chopped to suit.

Now that we know most of everything there is to know about this little beastie there is 1 more thing that I'd like to know.
Any chance that you could send some 100% white at the tree and measure what the current is.

Yep I'll do that tomorrow after work

 

[Notenoughlights]

@AAH
Current measurments as follows
All at 100%
White 2.91A
Red 2.37A
Green 2.30A
Blue 2.29A

 

[AAH]

@AAH
Current measurments as follows
All at 100%
White 2.91A
Red 2.37A
Green 2.30A
Blue 2.29A

That's slightly weird. The 195 pixel "should" give you a 100% white current of 10.7A. The individual R, G, B currents are relatively close to what they should be but how the white ends up only slightly more than any of the colours is confuzzling. It should be somewhere close to 7A at least :/

 

[Notenoughlights]

That's slightly weird. The 195 pixel "should" give you a 100% white current of 10.7A. The individual R, G, B currents are relatively close to what they should be but how the white ends up only slightly more than any of the colours is confuzzling. It should be somewhere close to 7A at least :/

This does run from a USB power supply, the biggest one I could find in my collection was capable of doing 4.2A @ 5V DC
The wires are also ultra thin on this tree, think standard Bunnings string light wire sizes but smaller.

 

[Grozzy]

This does run from a USB power supply, the biggest one I could find in my collection was capable of doing 4.2A @ 5V DC
The wires are also ultra thin on this tree, think standard Bunnings string light wire sizes but smaller.

The readings look like they may be RGBW but then that doesn't sit right that you could control them with WLED as RGB
other possibility is the controller is not driving them at 100% but then sum of RGB should still be close to W

As a side I was looking at the ws2822 chip that allows you to write the address to eeprom and connect them in parallel but it uses DMX protocol which again doesn't sit with the fact they work with WLED as WS2811 RGB

 

[spiroc]

This ones are fix address pixel explained here there is also more info in the wled github https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/issues/1312

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge8Swdd9Srw

 

[Martin Mueller]

GECE pixels use real addressable pixels (WS2811 uses position dependent pixels). In GECE there is an address field followed by data. they could be using such pixels in this tree.

 

[AAH]

This ones are fix address pixel explained here there is also more info in the wled github https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/issues/1312

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge8Swdd9Srw

A fellow Victorian waits 2.5 years to make his 1st post on ACL and he confuzzles me even more with that video and the github link. It looks like these pixels have been confusing people for about a year

 

[spiroc]

A fellow Victorian waits 2.5 years to make his 1st post on ACL and he confuzzles me even more with that video and the github link. It looks like these pixels have been confusing people for about a year

I'm more of a lurker then poster but yes this pixels can be found on aliexpress like fairy lights i run 200 of them from 2A 5V phone charger and esp32+wled the last 20 get dimer on white but for effects run perfect they sell the to run from 3 AA battery's