Ray's WS2811 Pixel Ball

crispy

Apprentice elf
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Jun 12, 2012
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72
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Fraser Lake
A legend in my own mind anyways :p


There are 80 on there.


Looks like the tree is falling over...
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
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Jun 12, 2010
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
That looks quite nice. :)

I saw those RGB balls a while back but didn't want to trust them outdoors. If I have a bigger indoor tree I'd get some for sure.
 

kane

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Dec 23, 2010
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Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
David_AVD said:
That looks quite nice. :)

I saw those RGB balls a while back but didn't want to trust them outdoors. If I have a bigger indoor tree I'd get some for sure.
My grand plan is to get a heap of them for the mega tree for next year.... Will have to do a few tests with them before committing to them I think - want to make sure they're waterproof...
 

lithgowlights

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May 6, 2010
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Not sure eddy - the camera is often worse looking than the eye, so unless seen in person I'll wait to decide. I'm considering 400 or so in the 4 trees here, and with the addition of leaves, viewing distances, and 99% of visitors not being able to pick an unevenly colored ball from an evenly colored ball, I might get away with it :)
 

kane

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Dec 23, 2010
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Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
David_AVD said:
How water resistant are they?
Looking at them, I think they'll be pretty splash resistent, but certainly wouldn't want to put them underwater.

After my few weeks forced hiatus from tinkering with anything blinky flashy, I plan on testing out the couple strings I have here - for both water resistence, and UV resistence..

Will also have to see how they go under load - if being strung up (without additional support), it'll be interesting to see if they pull apart over time.
 

riri7707

Full time elf
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May 9, 2010
Messages
222
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Paris / France
Regarding my experience with outside lights,
The problem here will come with condensation generation inside who will convert the embedded air in the balls into water, even if they are sealed perfectly, at end they will fail.
This results because outside temperature changes from sunny day to night, cold and humidity.
The real solution is to seal perfectly inside the ball:pcb, componenents and conections by recovering them using transparent resin (costly), then pratice small holes il the ball itself for air circulation to evacuate the humidity created.
Thats why most of the outside displays are resin covered and no air inside.
For the example, take a detailled look on standard external flood light or outside lights enclosures.
You will always discover a small hole in the enclosure to prevent moisture...
You can experiment easily with one ball and you will see after some days outside under rain.
 

kane

Dedicated elf
Joined
Dec 23, 2010
Messages
1,033
Location
Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
Is anyone else looking at using these balls?

I've asked Ray about an IP rated version - he's done some experimenting and is going to send me some samples, so will be interesting to see how they go. I want to use quite a few of them this year...

(he also said that they were already UV rated - has anyone experimented with leaving these out in the sun?)

Cheers

Kane
 
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