Splicing seed pixels

flash11

New elf
Joined
Sep 19, 2021
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9
Just wondering if seeds behave different to bullet pixels......I ordered custom strings of seeds but I have some left over and I wanted to splice into different lengths. When I did this, the seeds after the splicing stayed on as one solid colour while the rest of the string went through the normal test pattern. Thoughts?
 
It will usually work but there are subtle gotchas.

It is a little more difficult to tell which is data in and out
A lot of the seed pixels have V+ marked with white dots instead of V-
Some of the 4-wire ones have 2 kinds of chips alternating, with different pinouts, to make the wiring easier, if you splice wrong (two like chips together) it will skip a pixel etc.
There are some designs on the market with addressed seed pixels; this is most common if you get them from a matrix or something like that; these do not work like the bullets.

There are probably more considerations, but like I said, most kinds can be spliced like bullets.
 
I wanted to splice into different lengths. When I did this, the seeds after the splicing stayed on as one solid colour while the rest of the string went through the normal test pattern.
Are your seed pixels 3 wires or 4 wires?
Some are available with a backup data line, 4 wires total. The data snakes main/backup between the two data wires every pixel. What MerryOnCherry mentioned in their second point.
 
not sure it will help but maybe a little advice from someone who been down this road and messed it up badly

get maybe ten seeds power them up and get them working right
tape them down to the bench or some cardboard
spread the wires and write down beside each wire what it is data, +, -
also mark the direction and most definitely note which way they are facing "up or down"

if it all turns to crap i found the "first" seed always blow and once cut off you could easily start again
 
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