CLD Kevin Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 (edited) It was a speed change that clear my issue on it.JeffSpeed change? Where is this changed and to what setting?? Or that only for the j1sys? Edited October 10, 2014 by CLD Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sax Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 (edited) Sax? A 100 foot so you applied power at the string and not off the board correct? I power everything off the board as much as I can.jeffI am coming off the 682 with no power injection...so yeah...off the board. I am using null pixels of course.My longest run is only 50 ft of extensions actually. I was testing for 100 as I thought I would need to go to 75 ft.During testing everything worked fine. But once in the yard I too started having flicker. Reduced my 25 ft extenders to 20ft to clear it up.Makes no sense why it works during testing but hang it up and it has issues.I ordered some of the beldin cable listed above. Pricey stuff there. It is on back order from the supplier. But I will be testing that cable as soon as I get it. The shielded twisted pair should push the use out further.Seems the Joshua boards are able to push further.One last edit. When I test in the yard with lights up going through my solid colors, no flicker. I run a sequence with color switching red, green, blue on loop and again, no flicker. Run a real sequence, flicker. And the flicker starts at the null pixels. This leads me to believe it is the data getting corrupted. Which lead me to the beldin wire.Reducing my extension from 25 ft to 20 ft took care of the flicker. So that would work. But if I can get the beldin cable to do all 50 ft without null pixels I would prefer that. Edited October 10, 2014 by sax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerrymac Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 (edited) Kevin; I had about the same issue as you described. 19 12 volt strips and with 3 strips connected together and power injection between strip 2 and 3. The distance from the controller J1sys is 12 feet . I Used 4 conductor speaker wire from monoprice 18 gauge copper wire between the controller and the strips with 4 conductor waterproof connectors from China. (1 at each end of the connector wire, one at each end of the strips). The power injector wire is SPT1. Worked great on the floor but had all kinds of sparkles on the strips as well and random flashes one they were hung (16 feet in the air as this is a 19 X 50 matrix vertical) and after a couple of hours lots of issues.After 2 days of what the ?????? I noticed that the waterproof connector wires were very warm (nearly hot). The wire in the waterproof connectors is aluminum 20 or 22 gauge. When i dissembled the waterproof connectors from the strips and remove the shirk wrap tubing, it appears that the heat was sufficient to melt the shrink wrap for the 3 wires together (no totally melted but enough to make them stick very good, insulated but not very well any longer). I am surmising that the wire was hot enough to break down the shirt tubing allowing some crossover. ( I shrink wrapped each of the three wires then shrinked the three with a larger single shrink). I have replaced all of the waterproof connectors with ones using 18 gauge copper wire. All looks better but have not hung them up yet (really should haven't made any difference). I am using 3.5 mm DC plugs for the injection and am awaiting some 18 gauge copper male ends to complete. Edited October 10, 2014 by jerrymac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLD Kevin Posted October 11, 2014 Share Posted October 11, 2014 The cable I'm using is 3-wire 20awg. The controller for the upper roof has no issues even though 2 of the cables are 10ft to the first pixel. My issue is the lower controller. Today I replaced the 10ft with 5ft cables and the problem went away except for 1 leg. It has to be 10ft, so tomorrow I'm going to add a null pixel at the 5ft range. I'm hoping this fixes it. I'm also going to replace the 10ft cables I have on the upper roof adding a null pixel even though I'm not having issue. It cant hurt and only help. Next year I will replace all my extension cable with Belkin cable suggested. Only need about 100ft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Messer Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Yes Kevin the speed setting is on the J1sys cards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Messer Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Sax, If you power inject I can see 50 feet for the data from the card. I have seen 80 feet with power injection from a j1sys in test mode. I don't trust test mode myself. I want to see the sequence test it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobschm Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 Has anyone used cable TV wire for data transmission? I'm injecting power every 50 pixels at each string 45 feet out from the 24 volt supply. I get solid 4.77 volts on the far end of a pure white string, so power is not causing my flicker issue. I need to insure clean data 45 feet from the Sandevices board. Oddly, I get flicker on 10 foot and 45 foot lines, but not on a 15 foot line. RG59 is cheap and seems to run TV digital pretty far without loss. If I try it I'll let you know. Otherwise I'm looking at null pixels, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sticks4legs Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 I would look at putting in a null pixel. Regenerate and repeat the signal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sax Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 This is an older post but I wanted to supply an update.I was having flickering on my pixels using san devices E682 and 25 ft Ray Wu extensions with null pixels. When I reduced my extensions to 20 ft I had no flicker. But this causes more connections and null pixels.50 ft runs would be nice but this is not a standard cable size. I have purchased the beldin cable. I have not used any of yet. That was my original plan but the drawback is cost of the cable as well as more DIY work. My goal is to have an inexpensive solution with ready made products. I read in another thread that replacing the resistor networks will allow longer runs as suggested by San devices. So, since resistors are cheaper I thought to try this first. I replaced the standard 270 ohm resistor pack with a 68 ohm resistor pack. The results were favorable: My pixels connected to the 25 foot cables no longer flicker.Could it go further? Maybe. But this meets my needs and at less than $1 for the resistors this is my solution. The resistor packs are easily removed and replaced....it does not require any soldering.So my setup is:San devices E682 to pigtail to 25' extension cable from Ray to null pixel to 25' extension to pixels on my element. No power injection, the power and data straight down the extension. The E682 and 12v power supply in a CG1500. Again, I am using 12v pixels, 30 pixels per string, 6 strings. 2 50 pixels strips are also connected to the E682. All using standard extensions flicker free.Hopefully this is helpful information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezimnow Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 (edited) Just catching up to this thread..where do we get the Flat cable and what is another name for it as well as if we are using the P12 ...although expensive can we use a Pixel extender (ECG-PPD-C) as well for the longer runs? ...100ft Plus Additionally thanks for all the information from the testing ..helps a newbie like me not to fall into any more traps.I seem to find enough on my own Edited January 13, 2015 by ezimnow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 Just catching up to this thread..where do we get the Flat cable and what is another name for it as well as if we are using the P12 ...although expensive can we use a Pixel extender (ECG-PPD-C) as well for the longer runs? ...100ft Plus Additionally thanks for all the information from the testing ..helps a newbie like me not to fall into any more traps.I seem to find enough on my own Pixel Extenders are awesome. I use them for the Plasma Icicles and 60' is no problem 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Messer Posted January 14, 2015 Author Share Posted January 14, 2015 Well I bought some 22 gauge flat wire not knowing any better and it does ok. Best results would have been the 18 gauge flat wire for those 20 and 30 feet runs. I did see this year even with 12V on the 22 gauge wire at 5 feet from the controller all worked well except white when on solid. It would flicker real fast. I thought flicker was a speed issue for a long time. My brother in law made a joke and said apply power at the end of 79 pixels and see what it would do. BINGO it cleared up... I changed that flat 22 gauge 5 foot out to thermostata wire 18 gauge and it worked perfect. So now it tells me flicker can be data or power issues. First going 18 gauge flat wire on everything....... I have to admin Incands worked every time... LOL.. Plasmdrive thanks for all your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmilkie Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 one option I used this year for my pixels was 18awg SJOOW {http://www.homedepot.com/s/SJOO%2520WIRE?NCNI-5} wire; my longest length was only 25ft, but I had no problems and it worked great outside , very durable heavy duty outside coating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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