Ray put pigtails on my lights

[BundyRoy]

Got my order from Ray this week. Opened up my ink1003 strips to find that Ray had put pigtails on both ends for me. I wasn't expecting this and hadn't asked for it. I had ordered a heap of pigtails to put on myself. Initially I wasn't sure if Ray had used some of my order of pigtails and put them on or if the pigtails on the strip were extra to what I ordered.

Then I noticed the connectors on the strip were 3 pin connectors. Unfortunately for me as it turns out, I ordered 4 pin pigtails with the logic being that if somewhere down the track I use some strip that has 4 wires then I am already right to go and everything will be interchangeable between controllers etc.

It feels wrong to have to cut the 3 pin pigtails off but that is what I will have to do. Ray was "this close" to doing me a big favour. Oh well, I was expecting to have to solder them on anyway.

Two questions.

Is it normal for Ray to put pigtails on strip?

Is there a widely accepted protocol for wiring 4 pin pigtails (ie. which pin is data, +ve etc)?

 

[dale82]

I would say that if you didn't ask for it that there is a chance that you have received someone else's order. That is just my guess. Email ray and ask.

 

[Skunberg]

The widely accepted protocol for wiring is yours. Fasteddy 101 manual shows some, technicolor is different, and there's a document floating around that someone tried to standardize that's different again. What ever you go with make yourself a document to keep track of what you did so you don’t get confused in the future. Also note that the strings and strips are all different also.

 

[DanJ]

Good point Skunberg on keeping personal records of "stuff"... I keep a couple of little notebooks in which I scribble all kinds of notes. It is a it haphazard but effective. That way later on I can find "now why did I do that???"... I only ordered a few WS2811 strips last year from Ray and they came with the non-waterproof pigtails on them; I assumed that was standard protocol for the RGBs but that was my assumption... I had to cut them off and put the waterproof pigtails.. Soldering was a chore for me, as I had NEVER soldered before. The SMD-level soldering was a fairly significant challenge for me. So I chalk that up to a learning year. I expect every year will be a learning year!!! Good to learn new stuff. Anyway to Skunberg's point--I ordered a bunch of waterproof 4 pin connectors last year from a vendor (will leave them unnamed because I don't want to throw them under a bus...) and received five 5m strips in the package but not all of the connectors I needed. Simple. The vendor realized they may have gotten orders mixed up, sent me the stuff I needed, and I sent them the strips.

 

[BundyRoy]

Thanks for the replies. I don't think it's the wrong order. I ordered 11 3m strips of ink1003 and that is what I got. They just had pigtails put on. Maybe the pigtails got put on the wrong order and someone else has got some strip without pigtails although it should have been noticed unless they ordered 11 strips as well.

There didn't seem to be a standard wiring pattern. I will take notes like you said.

 

[fasteddy]

There is no standard but there is a logical approach
I have always used
3 core for 3 wire lights like the 2811
4 core for 6803 and 2801 and also for dumb RGB lights
2 core for power injection

Now for wire colours
Use Red/brown for +V
Black for GRND
and the other colours can be used for Data/clock (it wont damage the chip if the data and clock get mixed, it will just flicker or not work)

With dumb RGB use the black for the common and then use the closest colours that match the colour of the light.

But there is no standard and you must detrermine what works bets for you, this is just how I do it

 

[ShellNZ]

Thats also how I do it

I know its either green or blue for Data. Would have liked to stick to just one color e.g green, but the 4-core cable that I got from diff places last year/this year didnt have green it had blue

 

[BundyRoy]

Thanks Eddy/Shell. Sounds logical to me and now I have a written record so will go with that.