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What controller to use?


prevue12

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I am working on planning a snow man wire frame that will be animated so that it will juggle some snow balls. Thinking about what controller to use since the snow balls  (for example) will be small sections of LED light strings. I was thinking of using a CMB16D-QC, (16 Channel DC Controller) and not worry about making my own full wave rectifiers for each little snow ball.  I will add the right sized resistor(s) to get the right voltage drops so I don't burn out the LEDs.  Never used a  CMB16D-QC, anyone have any insights, or other ideas?  

 

If I over achieve might make the juggling interactive and have a push button to make it start juggling. That would be another new thing since I would need to use an input pup.  Not sure how feasible this part of the idea is.

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You could use smart Pixels and jut turn on those in the string to achieve the effect.

A bonus is they can programed to change colors  would 100 LEDS handle your Snowballs/  1 output used on a Pixie4

You can use (400) others for the Face and Body

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I think smarts pixels would be a good option.  To give a larger round diffused effects, could put some type  of translucent "cup/bowl" over each bulb to provide a more solid snowball effects. 

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6 hours ago, prevue12 said:

I was thinking of using a CMB16D-QC, (16 Channel DC Controller) and not worry about making my own full wave rectifiers for each little snow ball.

An option simpler than smart pixels is dumb pixels.  If you're just looking for the snowball effect and don't want/need motion, Dumb RGB nodes might be just the thing.  Allows any color and much quicker and easier to sequence.  I'd suggest the CMB24D instead of the CMB16D.  You get 3 more RGB channels for not very much more dough.  Don't worry, you'll use them... ;)

Another way to diffuse the snowball would be with coarse white styrofoam you can pick up at craft stores.  Cut it into a circle and zip tie it to the wire frame in front of the light(s).  I'd say 1" thick stock would probably work.  You might even want to try white styrofoam craft spheres and stick a pixel/node straight into it.

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If you want the Simplicity of dumb pixels without all the extra wires that it would take you can use a falcon controller and smart pixels and use pixel grouping. Going down this road you could always ungroup those pixels to give you more flexibility later on. With dumb pixels you have 4 wires for every group of pixels that you need, with smart pixels is 3 wires for everything unless you need some power injection. 

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Sequencing x number of smart pixels from  start to  end of a snowball path, wouldn't  ben any more challenging than using dumb nodes/modules.  You would simply turn a single pixel on/off as you progress from start to finish.  If you group several pixels together for a single snowball, then sequences would b e a little more envolved.

 

If you go with dumb nodes and only want a single color, then the cmb24d could provided 24 individual snowballs along the path.  While cmb24d is generally used for 8 rgb channels, it can setup to run 24 single color channels.  I have several cmb24d's that are running a combination of rgb and single color channels.

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2 hours ago, prevue12 said:

Speaking of dumb pixels, anybody have a good place to get some from?

Ray Wu store. Google him, or Rexiled from Ebay, I use both but not for dumb pixels. That ebay store is actually the manufacturer and they can make any qty/ length/ spacing you need

JR

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I ordered one set of dumb pixels from Rayb Wu, if I like them I can see me going that way and ordering a bunch more.  

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