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Addressable Rgb's


randr

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The reqired wire diameter depends on the number of leds you want to drive and the length of the wire.

There is a rule of thumb which says that you can have approx 10A per mm2 (not diameter) of wire. Personally I go for lower numbers (approx 5 A per mm2) to be on the safe side.

Remark: I not a orofessional in these things, so make sure to double check if I am right.

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Looks fantastic! I can't wait to join the club. Those shapes look awesome.

Just about to buy 8m of 144/m (randr style).

I'm talking to the Chinese suppliers to make sure there is no miscommunication when I say I want a continuous roll of 8m with no joins. They all seem to want to send me 0.5m or 1m rolls soldered together. There biggest concern is ensuring power is injected every metre and that's why they shy away from long rolls fearing ppl will complain when there is inadequate power.

I know I can solder joint lengths together,but, I feel it would be easier to have single runs on the back pf matrix and sides.

@Randr you had 1031 LEDs. Do you feel the PSU you got for them is adequate? I found this cheap one and hope it would do the job.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/ac-110v-220v-converter-to-dc-5v-70a-350w-switching-power-supply-power-supply-5v-led/1914686094.html

My cab is a wide body and so dimensions a pretty much the same as Randr's.

Just a question for those that already have built the matrix. Are you running it perpendicular to the pf or is it angled toward the player. My 5 flasher is currently angled. Most videos you guys have supplied look perpendicular to the pf.

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Seems like suppliers obviously can't test strips at that length and so generally unwilling to send long lengths of the 144/m.

post-102-144567384145_thumb.jpg

Based on the response it appears like they're willing to supply at various lengths. My follow up request will then be to ask them to cut it up at the desired lengths and then test before sending.

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Regarding the PSU:

I wouldnt  buy that AliExpress PSU. 16USD for a 70A PSU is very cheap. Usually such things are cheap for a reason.

Since you are dealing with a lot of power (even if the voltage is low) problems can easily lead to a lot of heat. 70A is almost enough for welding! For that reason I think that cheap PSUs are potentialy dangerous way of saving money. Even if the specs look the same as the ones of the Meanwell PSU they have copied, its behaviour and real live specs are not necessarily what they say.

After a few bad experiences, I have completely stopped to order things, which could potentially be dangerous if something goes wrong (approx 30% of domestic fires are do to electrical problems), from AliExpress.

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Good price here:

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1M-2M-4M-5M-WS2812B-5V-RGB-Addressble-LED-Strip-Black-White-PCB-30-60-144/32461422496.html

 

I ordered 8m of 144led/m strip and with discounts and coupons, it came out to less than $17/m shipped. Guess we'll see what it looks like when it gets here from China.

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Hi CarnyPriest!

The link you provided has only 60leds/m...

is it a mistake or is the seller giving away different options in this 1 auction?

Sent from my Buschbongo using Patschehändes

Different options, for Color select the box Black 2m IP30 144. I.e., 2m non-waterproof strip on black Flex PCB.

Looks like some of the discounts I took advantage of have already expired. You can still get a $5 coupon by using the AliExpress mobile app and joining their version of PayPal, AliPay.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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  • 3 weeks later...

my stripes arrived :-))

 

sorry for my poor english

 

Like to solder them but i don't know what colour from the patchcable is ledstripe 1 or ledstripe 2.

example

 

orange > 1. stripe ??

blue > 2. stripe ??

and so on

 

Is there a chart or something ?

 

Greetings

 

karlson

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thanks for your feedback.

 

i plan to use 3 stripes (left, back for martix and lef), left and right are 1 m wirh 144 leds back 10 rows a 0,5 m with 72 led per row. could i use any colour from the cable

 

so i will use orange > 1 strip, blue > 2 strip and brown > 3 strip do you think this will work?

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Good price here:

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1M-2M-4M-5M-WS2812B-5V-RGB-Addressble-LED-Strip-Black-White-PCB-30-60-144/32461422496.html

 

I ordered 8m of 144led/m strip and with discounts and coupons, it came out to less than $17/m shipped. Guess we'll see what it looks like when it gets here from China.

 

The package did arrive a while back. Never did get around to testing and my time to sit on this transaction is running out tonight. But it looks good. I ordered 4 x 2m strips of 144/m. The package arrived as two spools with each spool consisting of 2 x 2m strips. Each spool arrived in its own sealed anti-static package. I pulled one of the spools and counted the chips. Each of the two strips was composed of 4 x 0.5m lengths soldered together. Works for me. I intended on constructing my matrix from 0.5m portions, so I just have to separate each piece at the solder join. The package arrived pretty quickly. Less than two weeks, I think.

 

I have all the parts to test, but did not give myself much time to figure out the rest of hardware and software. I'll have to work on this part of the build later, but it's really exciting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All,

 

After a long summer I came back to the forums and had to dig thru 14 pages of this topic :P , amazing the things are working out at the moment.

 

Like Swiss mentioned Shifters and myself made a Artnet-Arduino solution last year and got pretty far with it:

 

 

Also look into this topic if you like.

 

The thing that made it a lot of work at the time was the config of the tables, but it seems there is a lot off progress also now.

 

In the spring there did not seem to be very much interest in the ledstrips but now that times have changed. To maybe have more options for the LEDstrips Shifters told me to release the current code for the Arduino.

 

Like Swiss mentioned the limit per Arduino is 170 leds over Artnet, so we have more then one in our cabs to do the work. Advantage there is that you can extend as much as you like and split up parts of the cab. We also have strips on the back of the backbox, under the cab and I have some on my Apron also.

For arduino's we use the cheap Arduino Uno Mega with an ethernet shield, easy to assamble and very cheap to get also.

 

At the moment I have not got it clear if the DOF3.0 with the right cabinet.xml can also do the same as te Netduino solution. It would be nice if there is enough people wanting this it could also be taking into DOF.

 

The code is attached, is released in the public domain and credit where it belongs: the code is completly done by Shifters, not me.

 

Keep up the good work guys, loving every page of this topic !

 

Erwin

VPFx2 - generic - universes.zip

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Thought i would update this for anyone keeping track. I installed my setup with window tint but just did not like the reflection on playfield so i installed privacy film ontop of window tint in proper direction and that sovled that!

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Thought i would update this for anyone keeping track. I installed my setup with window tint but just did not like the reflection on playfield so i installed privacy film ontop of window tint in proper direction and that sovled that!

Have you got any links to the sort products you used to achieve the results you settled on.

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Randr could you please post some pictures of your addressable led setup?? How did you wire the ledstrips? And how you made the led matrix,how did you attach the tinted plexi, where did you route the wires and such? That would be much appreciated.

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