Power Injector Help

stan780953

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Jan 21, 2022
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I am reaching out for help before I go insane!

Despite watching tons of videos, I can't get my power injectors to work with WS2811 pixels.

Originally, I started with two 50-pixel strings, then added a power injector T piece which is powered by the same PSU, then added two more strings, but even with power at the end of the last string, the last two strings won't light up.

I have checked the power output at the end of the T piece and cabling etc but I can't figure out why the last two aren't working.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
 

merryoncherry

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What kind of pixels are they?
For most pixels, if you run a dim test pattern (say, all red, or 30%, etc.), you should be able to try all 200 pixels without PI. This would tell us if the data isn't going through the PI tee, or didn't exist in the first place... like if you only had 100 pixels configured on the port.
If they don't light without the tee, then we know what the next step is - look at controller config.
If they do light without the tee, then we're gonna need to know more about the tee and how you're hooking it up, to be sure the data goes in and out straight through it.
 

stan780953

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Thanks for all your advise.

It was the pixel count on the controller that did the trick!

Interesting though as I could run 200 pixels from one port at 100% with no injection. Is it best to boost the power at the end or shall I leave it?
 

Skymaster

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If it's a short run to the pixels from the controller, you'll get less voltage drop.
Usually you'll start to see some colour degradation at the end of the string - test at 100% white and you will probably see something happening at the end.
 

scamper

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Thanks for all your advise.

It was the pixel count on the controller that did the trick!

Interesting though as I could run 200 pixels from one port at 100% with no injection. Is it best to boost the power at the end or shall I leave it?
If you have pixels with a decent wire gauge you may be able to get away without injection, but best practise would be to add some power just if nothing else to help with heat and voltage drop, especially if you run at full brightness and lots of white.
 

merryoncherry

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Interesting though as I could run 200 pixels from one port at 100% with no injection. Is it best to boost the power at the end or shall I leave it?

You never said what kind of pixels they are. When you say you ran them at 100%, I assume that means 100% white (which you'll rarely do in the show) and nothing bad happened and it looked "good enough" to you. If this is true, adding more power sounds like it isn't worthwhile.

My guess is, if they're 12V resistor pixels (like most of mine), 200 powered from the controller end and nowhere else is just fine. 250-400 benefit noticeably from having power added at the far end of the string. On the other hand, 12V regulator pixels will not work this way, nor will 5V, or anything fancy like C9s, modules, etc.
 

stan780953

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Jan 21, 2022
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@merryoncherry

I'm using 12v WS2811 resistor pixels and yes 100% white looked ok. Thanks to everyones help I'm a little clearer on things now and will experiment.
 
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