Spacing C9

[kwennerberg]

I want to buy or build a string of Intelligent pixels in the traditional C9 appearance such as Pixabulb. I need 21" spacing (53cm) between pixels. String is to be 92 bulbs only and will be controlled by a Kulp controller. How can I obtain that spacing? (I am OK with buying a string and splicing if that is doable-- is the 3rd data wire just another 18 gauge wire? Or, I would buy custom. Detailed suggestions, please.

 

[i13]

Many of the suppliers offer custom spacing. Just keep in mind that they're not always precise. If you ask for 21 inch (thanks for including 53cm for metric people like myself), they might measure the wire length without accounting for the fact that some of the wire ends up inside the bullet shaped nodes. Another thing to consider is voltage drop. I'd suggest choosing pixels with thick wire because voltage drop happens with distance and those are spaced a long way apart.

Splicing should work too. The thickness of the data wire is not very important because it carries the least current.

 

[kwennerberg]

Yeah... if you had written 53cm I would have had to do conversion (I'm in USA), so I did it for metric audience since I'm the one asking free advice.
I keep hearing that suppliers can do custom, but I have written three so far and not received a reply. Heck, it's January-- they shouldn't be busy.

 

[i13]

I've ordered custom spacing from Ray Wu and scottled before. Ray Wu's spacing was more precise but I did ask for centre to centre spacing. I haven't ordered from either seller for quite some time so I can't comment on their products recently. Emailing directly can sometimes result in a cheaper shipping price than ordering through AliExpress.

I don't have any of the C9-stype pixels so I can't comment on how well they last or perform. I wouldn't be surprised if covers exist to make standard 12mm pixels look like C9 pixels.

 

[uncledan]

You might reach out to member here @benbrown at ScottLED. I've purchased lots of C9's from him and have yet have any failures. Custom spacing hasn't been a problem in the past.