randr Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Ha! Tonight is big test with new matrix so get ready to start the generator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted August 28, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 28, 2015 Cant wait to see the results of Randr tests Regarding power supplies: When choosing a chinese power supply always go for one with a lot of extra power. They are sometimes not as strong as the label says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 29, 2015 Author Share Posted August 29, 2015 If you recall i did my logo on matrix with 30/meter leds here is video at 144/meter same logo total matrix leds is 81 per row x 9 rows total in matrix is 729 plus sides of cab are 151 each side for total of 1031 leds addressable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 29, 2015 Author Share Posted August 29, 2015 and just a couple tables played with 144/meter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 that's just crazy dude, what ar ewe gonna do with these 5 flashers now i have less space than you in my cab, don't know how many lines of rgb i can put to replace the flashers, i wil think about it, when i replace my ledwiz with pacled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider freneticamnesic Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 Wait till you hear the price! I don't think flashers are going anywhere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashyrk Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Yeah it's not going to be cheap, so I'll be going with 60 pr meter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 no, but what is scares me the most is to redo all 600 configs for these strips, first try with a few tables to experiment the possibilities, acquire experience and improve technics, and once we have enough experience, start to do all tables, that's how i would see this it took me 2 years to have enough experience to say i can take one table now and not going back to it anymore, with the flashers and so on, so we'll see if i ever go that way, but it's not gonna be soon i think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashyrk Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 That sounds like a lot of work,but how about making a tutorial so more people can contribute if they want to or just so people can modify their tables. I don't know how you do the table configuration or how much work is involved so I'm just sharing my thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 A few remarks: Randr is insane (even more than I am) For a start we can convert the classical flasher configs into strip configs for the back of the playfield. By reusing the data of the lauch button lamp it is also possible automatically create some effects for the shooter lane. I already got a script which can do that. Unfortunately the script is kind of messy, so I might have to redo parts of the script.However more more advanced effects like the ones you see for TZ in Randrs video, manual configs are the only way to go. If someone is willing to compile a file with a bit of information on a bunch of tables, it would be possible to create even more more effects using scripts. Possible candidates would be the in- and outlanes, bumpers, rollover lights and scoops. I'm happy to provide some more info on the required data if someone is willing to help. Randr is using a lot of leds in his setup. Just keep in mind that the number of leds has a impact on the max possible refresh frequency for the leds. Data frequncy for the strips is 800khz, each led needs 24 bits which have to be sent to the strip and some extra time is required after the transsmisson of the data to the strip before the strip displays the data. In addition the data also has to be sent from the computer to the led strip controller.Some work to speed up data transfer from the computer to the controller is in progress (dont know yet how much this will help). On the other hand there is no way to go beyond the 800khz frequency of the strips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 so how much led is acceptable for the controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 I never did a proper measurement of the update frequencies in relation to the number of leds. Long time ago I did a few calculations and I think that I got to a 30hz update frequency with about 300leds (not sure anymore if I remember correctly). The fact that the strips really need a lot of data is the main reason for the controller to use a usb interface chip whioch allows for paralell connection to the cpu generating the data stream for the leds. Like that 400-500kbytes per second can be transfered to the controller (Did some measurement for that, but also this was long ago, so I'm not sure anymore about the exact numbers). But as I wrote in the last post, there are some experiments going on with the goal to achieve even higher data troughput by packing the data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 29, 2015 Author Share Posted August 29, 2015 Swisslizard the effects are great! If you help me get the script setup I will do configs. I already added configs to config too up to H's for basic effects, but really want to make for example in Congo video the 5 bar replacement the shapes are full squares and want to make them smaller circles like 5 bar so less led's lit. Email me when you have time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 29, 2015 Author Share Posted August 29, 2015 better example of 5 bar replacement effect. i will work on this table to shape the effect round-ish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashyrk Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Nice work randr, how bright are the leds compared to the standard rgb flashers? Do you see spots after looking directly at it? I see you are hard at work updating tables Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 29, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 29, 2015 we can play with the intensity of the leds in the configtool so it can be more or less bright than flashers i can help to inject the converted 5 flashers to rgb pf in the db directly if you can run a script to a certain ini file, i would like to test it on our beta configtool first to test, pm me randr and swisslizard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gech Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Hi everyone I come from french forum (arngrim will recognise me ) and, as already said in vp forum, am very exited about those leds... I got a very little skill in programmation but i would be very interrested helping you improve the system. I'm planning building a cab that will incorporate neopixels and already got a test config. So.. if I can help you one way or another, I'm in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Here is my thinking on this. Emulate 5 small round flashers with matrix this should have near perfect result with 144/meter but with 60/meter will still be great! So for basic configs will "look" no different then actual 5 flashers but we will have option to add many more effects within the matrix. I have spent a day trying to convert areas to circles and is proving to be a large task so hoping swisslizard can provide a simple way of doing this. Will hold off on configs until tom can take a look. Thanks guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Got some updates... With area of 23 x 3 1/4 I have made 3 different matrix with the 3 available strips 30/meter, 60/meter and 144/meter. @30/meter effect works but honestly to much is lost as seen in my very first test videos. With 30/meter and size of my area matrix was 17 led's across with 8 rows so matrix was 136 led's and worked ok. @144/meter effect is best it can be but expensive! With 144/meter and size of my area matrix was 81 led's across with 9 rows so matrix was 729 led's and works amazing! The best you can do! @60/meter effect works fine. "Affordable" with 60/meter and size of my area matrix was 34 led's across with 8 rows so matrix was 272 led's and effect is fine. Below are photos of prototype matrix's I applied to copper plate and just soldiered in one direction(strips are directional) Top matrix is 60/meter Below that is 30/meter Below is what I'm going to personally use 144/meter Again these are built very quickly and just for testing. I will also add in front of the matrix is 5% tinted(black limo tint) plexi and looks great! All you see is smooth black glass until matrix is lit. Hope this helps people get a better idea of what is going on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashyrk Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Do you have any videos with 60/m ? And are the copperplate necessary? copper is quite expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 30, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 30, 2015 what is a copper? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Copper I had laying around. Aluminum works too. I just used copper as "heat sink" was laying around in shop. Honestly you could probably use plexi to mount strips to as in my 30/meter test have yet see any real heat generated even with 144/meter but a heat sink is good insurance either way and makes for a good mounting surface I will up pics of 60/meter details of wiring for you guys soon. Wiring it now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 30, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 30, 2015 if we can make circles like flashers i am in so we could make also cross, triangle, square, small logos, words like jackpot, you loose, won a beer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 if we can make circles like flashers i am in so we could make also cross, triangle, square, small logos, words like jackpot, you loose, won a beer? YES! anything is possible! thats what makes this so neat. yes it can look just like 5 flasher bar...but then can be so much more! anything can be displayed on matrix. O.k. here is detail of 60/meter matrix wiring. again this was made real quick 30min total soldier time is all so it can be made much cleaner but this is testing. connectors are male and femal(in and out) standard addressable led strip stuff. see photo detail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider arngrim Posted August 30, 2015 Content Provider Share Posted August 30, 2015 so we could just call a circle image and we can put it wherever we want and enlarge or minimize like we want? now i want these symbols replacing the circles of the flashers in met table Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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