WS2801 vs. WS2811

[plasmadrive]

I am just starting to use 2801 pixels and stips. I see many have migrated to the 2811. I had reservations because someone mentioned something about noise or speed issues..

Has anyone done a comparison? If so what did you find?

[edvas69]

The primary difference is that the 2801 has the timing done on the IC itself, thats why it has a clock signal. the 2811 has the timing basically within the data instead so there is no requirement for a clock wire. This means if connecting lots of 2811 strip together then bandwidth requirements would be larger and refesh rates would be slower than the 2801. But this shouldnt be a great issue and is really untested on 12 strips of 2811 and how they perform compared to 12 strips of 2801.

The other difference is that the 2811 strip can get a further distance than the 2801 between pixels, as far as how far, i have tested up to 10 metres with success.

They both are 8 bit meaning they both have 256 dimming steps per colour, so no differnce there

The 2811 will drive the LEDs at 18.5mA compared to the 2801 which drives the LEDs at 20ma so not a great deal of difference there.

And finally the price difference is well in favour of the 2811 as the 2811 strip can be obtained for $36 for a 5 metre strip and the 3 LED modules can be bought for $14 for 20 modules which is only a couple of more dollars than the dumb RGB modules.

[plasmadrive]

Thanks fort the info. This is helpful. I knew some of it but not all. I had no idea about the distance between pixels. This makes a lot of difference.