Enclosure

[MGoBlue102]

12 minutes ago, ericm said:

i did this with 6 controllers in one metal box, got my design from Kevin Strickhouse, search for Strictly Lights on facebook and you can see the design. 

Is it Elkhorn Wisconsin? 

[ericm]

1 hour ago, MGoBlue102 said:

Is it Elkhorn Wisconsin? 

yes

 

[TBS99]

Here is Kevin's YouTube video. Very impressive wiring.

Tom

 

[MGoBlue102]

Holy hell!  Never have I even imagined anything so massive.  That is a lot of wiring and all coming from one central location.

[ericm]

i don't have as many controllers as he did i will be at 33 this year, but yeah its a lot thats why he switching a lot to pixels this year.

[MGoBlue102]

I am extremely new to this whole process, not a lot of anything just yet,   only led's i have are the mega tree and i did that intentionally to keep nostalgic on one major part of my display as I grow.  I got pixels for every other light component for this year,  going to run pixel arches, pixel outlines and a couple pixel trees that will not be anywhere the size of my mega tree but I am afraid it will be much more time consuming dealing with programming pixels and making things work right.  Still not positive on who to buy what from exactly.  I have not learned how to deal with alibaba yet but hear this Ray Wu is a person to deal with.  I am hoping to do some mini led trees to surround my mega tree this year as well but not certain.

[beeiilll]

Ray is a very good guy to deal with for sure!  I have done over a dozen orders with him with no problems at all.  You are best off to make up a list of the items you want and converse with Ray through email or even Skype.

You want to be VERY clear in your explanations and descriptions of what you want as well.  Ray can make up whatever you want with connectors on the ends, special spacing or lengths, etc. but be very clear and you will avoid any troubles.  He will also give you a better price on shipping if you consolidate your items into one order rather than using the AliExpress cart system.  He does accept PayPal and other means of payments.

There are a lot of folks on here and other forums that can help if you know what stuff you are looking to buy as far as suppliers.  There are some here in the US for a lot of items including pixels and other items.

[k6ccc]

+1 on Ray Wu

I do one order a year from him (this year was some P10 panels and two power supplies).  As beeiilll said, once you figure out your order, send Ray a message with your order and request a quote.  You can send the message through the web site, and I normally include links for each item.  That makes it easy on him.  He will respond with a quote that will save a lot on shipping.  Then you purchase from the quote.  The Alibaba cart systems prices shipping based on shipping each item separately.

 

[MGoBlue102]

2 hours ago, k6ccc said:

+1 on Ray Wu

I do one order a year from him (this year was some P10 panels and two power supplies).  As beeiilll said, once you figure out your order, send Ray a message with your order and request a quote.  You can send the message through the web site, and I normally include links for each item.  That makes it easy on him.  He will respond with a quote that will save a lot on shipping.  Then you purchase from the quote.  The Alibaba cart systems prices shipping based on shipping each item separately.

 

I am looking hard at these p10 panels.  Trying to figure best way to do a pixel curtain type product.  I want to have a 6' x 9' roughly pixel panel that will play video from an external source.  Saw someone do it and I want to also.  At Halloween I want to play the movie on this pixel board of Nightmare before Christmas while my singing faces also narrate and sing along to the soundtrack.  Love the concept, just not sure how to pull it off yet.  The P10 panels appear to be around 6" each so I was thinking of hooking a bunch of them together to form a 6'x9' panel to do this.  Just not sure still if it will do it or how still and I certainly cannot afford the prefab item I found that cost in the thousands.  I need to stick to hundreds if possible.

[Dennis Laff]

if your looking for P10 panel Kits    go to  Crockett fantasy lights

Edited April 7, 2018 by Dennis Laff

[k6ccc]

2 hours ago, MGoBlue102 said:

I am looking hard at these p10 panels.  Trying to figure best way to do a pixel curtain type product.  I want to have a 6' x 9' roughly pixel panel that will play video from an external source.  Saw someone do it and I want to also.  At Halloween I want to play the movie on this pixel board of Nightmare before Christmas while my singing faces also narrate and sing along to the soundtrack.  Love the concept, just not sure how to pull it off yet.  The P10 panels appear to be around 6" each so I was thinking of hooking a bunch of them together to form a 6'x9' panel to do this.  Just not sure still if it will do it or how still and I certainly cannot afford the prefab item I found that cost in the thousands.  I need to stick to hundreds if possible.

If you are intending to use this strictly for video, your best bet would be to use a ColorLight sender card to convert DVI video into a data stream, and then a ColorLight receiver card (or cards) to drive the P10 panels.  That would actually be using these panels closer to the way they were designed.  The P10 panels are 160mm x 320mm (or about 6 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches).  Therefore a 6' x 9' panel would be 108 panels which is quite doable.

 

[beeiilll]

Jim is right on using a sender and receiver card for video if you are really serious. 

Just want to add that you might go over to the FalconChristmas.com site and read up there as well.  There are quite a few people over there that are playing with the ColorLight and the Linds(?) cards for doing video and even using P5 panels.  A good bunch of information available on this subject.

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by beeiilll

[dibblejr]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 2:00 PM, beeiilll said:

I just took the covers for the plugs and painted them with Krylon fusion paint to get the colors.  Yea, it makes things a lot easier to keep track off for me.  I have 4 color strings on all my windows, doors, and roof so I use8 conductor cord to run the lines out from under my front deck up to the roof and windows for the strings.  With the color coding, it is a snap to hook things up quickly.

I don't think they make the Krylon Fusion any longer. I used it for years to custom pint car headlight internals. Havent found it in 2 years. I now use the Krylon Plastic paint (not the name of it but its rated for plastic). I truly loved the Fusion for my purpose.

JR

[MGoBlue102]

Funny, just yesterday I was looking at the hardware stores and all I found was the plastic rated version as well.  No Fusion.

[beeiilll]

18 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

I don't think they make the Krylon Fusion any longer. I used it for years to custom pint car headlight internals. Havent found it in 2 years. I now use the Krylon Plastic paint (not the name of it but its rated for plastic). I truly loved the Fusion for my purpose.

JR

I guess they have changed the name!  I have not bought any in a couple of years myself and still have a lot of it left yet!

I see now they call it "Fusion for Plastic" from the looks:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Krylon+fusion

[dibblejr]

3 minutes ago, beeiilll said:

I guess they have changed the name!  I have not bought any in a couple of years myself and still have a lot of it left yet!

I see now they call it "Fusion for Plastic" from the looks:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Krylon+fusion

Must be an online exclusive now. The new stuff I found doesn't have the word/ name Fusion anywhere on the can. That Fusion adheres to plastic even if its not prepped well and also will fill in any scratches. Was great stuff. Ive checked every store that sells paint and of course the big box stores I used to purchase it from.

JR

[PhilMassey]

I expect the solvent used for the "Fusion" version has been changed to a "safer" variety, for environmental and/or health regulations. While it is  understandable, these solvents are usually less aggressive, and and don't work quite as well.

[beeiilll]

1 hour ago, dibblejr said:

Must be an online exclusive now. The new stuff I found doesn't have the word/ name Fusion anywhere on the can. That Fusion adheres to plastic even if its not prepped well and also will fill in any scratches. Was great stuff. Ive checked every store that sells paint and of course the big box stores I used to purchase it from.

JR

The closest place for me is 1/2 hour away in another town at a True Value dealer.  Hence the reason I buy a lot of stuff online anyway!   I'll have to check when I get over there and see.

This is from the Krylon page:  http://www.krylon.com/locator/

The solvent issue is probably the reformulation cause I would agree.  I have 15 cabins that we take care of at our camp and used to use a great oil-based paint for them as we have to paint 3 a year usually.  Now everything is water based and the paints are crap for trying to overcoat old oil based stuff as well as it just doesn't hold up as well to weather as the oil-based paint did.  Also tough to get good paint on metal outdoor furniture and signs now but such is the way of change and "progress".

Makes life a bit more challenging to try and keep things in good condition at the very least and sometimes very frustrating to have to try and prep older stuff with oil paint on it for the newer water based stuff!  I use epoxy paint on a lot of stuff but it takes a very good prep job and careful painting to make sure it is right when you do it.  Makes for a good tough paint job that will last quite a while though!

[PhilMassey]

Unfortunately, the properties that make solvents aggressive  and effective at attaching to various surfaces, also tends to make them carcinogens, and many are now banned. We used to slop Benzene around like water years ago to make adhesives and for surface prep.

I believe if gasoline were invented today it would probably be banned.

[MGoBlue102]

On 4/6/2018 at 11:46 PM, k6ccc said:

If you are intending to use this strictly for video, your best bet would be to use a ColorLight sender card to convert DVI video into a data stream, and then a ColorLight receiver card (or cards) to drive the P10 panels.  That would actually be using these panels closer to the way they were designed.  The P10 panels are 160mm x 320mm (or about 6 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches).  Therefore a 6' x 9' panel would be 108 panels which is quite doable.

 

I looked at the colorlight product and it appears the board is for a desktop like an internal application.  They do also have an enclosed model that I assume is just a self contained all in one device called an S2 Sender Box.  I am reading up on it now.  It appears to go for a couple hundred.  The box has DVI input as well as a couple others like USB.  This might be the route I go since I do not have a desktop with dvi output, I use a laptop.  So in trying to figure out this madness, it appears the sending/receiving units assist with the p10 panels somehow.  Not certain what exactly they do other than provide an input source.  In looking at the receiver, it appears they have many data ports.  I assume instead of hooking the p10 panels together with the data cable, each panel is individually connected to the receiver board.  Is that correct?  I assume so since the board has as many as 16 data ports on the board, all appearing to be 16pin connectors.  BTW, I have re-thought the actual dimension now that I measured my ideal space to mount it once built.  I need to stick to approximately 4x7 which would mean approximately 56 p10 panels.  Reading up it appears a panel is 16x32 pixels so all in all my complete board would be 128 pixels high by 224 pixels wide.  It indicates that sender supports up to 2560 x 2560 pixels.  So am I right to think that all I would need to make life easy to display an actual video to this screen would be the 56 P10 panels, the sender and enough receiving boards to support 56 panels?  I still need to then figure out how to synchronize my LOR controller with my singing faces so that the video/audio of the movie and the singing faces narrating and singing match each other.

On 4/6/2018 at 11:46 PM, k6ccc said:

If you are intending to use this strictly for video, your best bet would be to use a ColorLight sender card to convert DVI video into a data stream, and then a ColorLight receiver card (or cards) to drive the P10 panels.  That would actually be using these panels closer to the way they were designed.  The P10 panels are 160mm x 320mm (or about 6 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches).  Therefore a 6' x 9' panel would be 108 panels which is quite doable.

 

 

On 4/6/2018 at 11:46 PM, k6ccc said:

If you are intending to use this strictly for video, your best bet would be to use a ColorLight sender card to convert DVI video into a data stream, and then a ColorLight receiver card (or cards) to drive the P10 panels.  That would actually be using these panels closer to the way they were designed.  The P10 panels are 160mm x 320mm (or about 6 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches).  Therefore a 6' x 9' panel would be 108 panels which is quite doable.