I’m making curtains for my windows! I’ve got two windows per room. I’m hanging individually addressable pixel fairy LEDs strands, 11 per window. I’ll be repeating the diagram for five rooms total (if the first room goes well!).
I think I’ve got all required info on the diagram.
Generally, that all looks workable.
Of course the devil’s in the details…
Your total current required for each window is at a workable level ~2.75A, but you’ll need to watch the voltage drop over the distances you’re expecting. The farthest curtain strip will be (guessing) 20’+ from the power supply. That may induce some drop for the last strip(s) depending on the size of power wire.
Data distances should be reasonable for the Dig-Uno. When you go to the larger scale setup, you’ll have to decide on how many separate strips you want to drive from a single GPIO. For simple brightness on/off, fade effects you can get away with chaining a few windows together on 1 pin. For more complicated time intensive effects, you may have to limit the LEDs per pin to keep the frame rate up.
Hey thanks! Heh, I wasn’t clear enough! I’m doing 5 rooms, but individually - I’ll have one Dig-Uno and one power supply in each room. It was suggested I use XLights to “pull them together”.
If you would - suggest for me power wire size? I was THINKING 18awg for power/common, and 24awg for data/return. Also - I haven’t selected a power supply yet - but is 5V10A overkill per room since actual draw is 5.28A?
Thinking about it - I could move the power splice points to the middle of each “curtain” instead of one end - Not sure how much help that’d be though…
EDIT: I looked at the DigUno pinout… It has two channels, for two LED strips. But then - where do I connect my “return” wires? I’m using these: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805230984918.html which is based on the WS2812B.
The voltage drop issues are simple Ohm’s law calculations based on the worst case current flow you’ll need, and the length and size of wire you choose. There are a couple of good calculators in the KB that can help. In general you can’t “overkill” on PS’s (within reason) and more capability is better. Many supplies “rated @ 10A” actually start to fail miserably at 6 or 7A loads.
Putting the injection points in the middle of strip rather than the end is a simple way of distributing and voltage drops to reduce the impact.
Never used those style LEDs myself, but I would guess the “Return” is the equivalent of Dout for the last LED of the strip(?).
That’s what I thought, too. But looking at the board:
There’s only one data pin per strip.
Now, on a couple diagrams, I’ve seen this:
Where the data and return are spliced, making a loop. I’m FINE with that, but, you know, I want to be sure…
I think the return is so that you can create a curtain/matrix and not have to run the data line from the end of the string back up to the top to go IN the next string. You would wire the beginning of your first string:
*The end of the first string you would tie the Data to the return (of the same string), thus giving you a path back to the top. I don’t think that ‘return’ wire is connected to anything. It is just a way to get back to the top of the string.
Second string: beginning of it Return ties to Data of 3rd string. End of second string tie data and return together.
**When you get to the end of the last string you don’t need to tie anything to the return. So basically your diagram minus that long blue/green return wires to the controller and the last connecting at the end of the last string.
Hey yeah thanks! That’s how I’ll do it. I guess I was stuck in the WS2815 mindset (the only other LED’s I’ve used) and thought of it as a “backup” not a “return”.
A bit different than you took the time (THANKS!) to draw out - I’m going to make both sides wired the same, rather than mirror image them, just because it’s easier to program with each window wired for the same direction.
That’s an interesting thought, although it means they’ve added a spare piece of wire that “does nothing” (until you use it for something).
Easy enough to tell with a strip in hand, just use an ohmmeter on the both ends of that line. If you get 0 ohms (or close to) that’s just a piece of wire, anything appreciably above that and there’s probably some electronics in the way…
I would test that with a long data wire before setting that all up just to be sure the data will travel that distance to the first LED.
$96 for 100M 2in spacing with return line sounds like a good price.
They actually sell WS2811 12mm bullet icicle strings that work the same way. Granted they are already preconfigured and not diy each drop… Same concept though.
I searched and saw that - KIND of what I’m doing, not a bad idea, but - LOL I’m sticking with what I’ve got! LOL I like a challenge.
