3840 Pixel Matrix information (11520 DMX Channels)

[thebaronn]

Hello!

I finally have posted pictures of the pixel matrix.

http://www.facebook....71009213&type=1

I have lost the pictures I took when I was building it, but it was pretty straight forward.

1. Sandwich 5 4'X8' pieces of Corrugated Plastic with a sheet of 4'X8' 1" pegboard on top.

2. Place the pegboard in such a way that all 48 holes can be drilled into the Coro with the last hole as close to the bottom as possible

(To leave room at the top to attach it to the house)

3. Drill holes all the way through every other hole (2" spacing) Use a high quality drillbit that is sharp so yu don't have to clean the holes. Drill a 48X16 Grid

Now, I chose this number because I could use 16 pixel strings from Ray Wu with 48 pixels in each string with a power supply at the E682 bard (no power injected

down the line) and it was easy to create the matix in LightShowPro.

4. Then, cut the grid from the rest of the Coro (the original sheets are 48"X96", new dimensions are 32"X96"

5. Sandwich the top of the panel between 2 1'X2' boards. I predrilled the 3 holes and then used the coated Drywall screws with a washer on the head to secure them

6. I started in the middle, I clamped the panel to the roof and when it was level I drilled 2 holes all the way through and attached the panel with bolts. Then did the same

for the other 4 panels.

7. The easy part was done! The hardest and most painful part was pressing the pixels through the coro.

I used the flat WS2811 pixels from Ray Wu. I ordered 4 types of pixels from Ray back in July. My and my wife looked at each pixel. While the TS3001 has more levels of color, the Ws2811 were at least twice as bright, that was the selling point. As you can see, they are really bright youtu.be/ukASk78uJto These are the pixels: http://www.aliexpres..._581805567.html I do not like the cylindrical pixels. The cyllindrical pixels were easily pulled out of the coro (even just by brushing against it or wind moving the panel). And I only have 200 pixels of cyllidrical type and I have pulled the wires on 3 of them apart. I have yet to pull apart a flat pixel and I have much more of those. Also, It is easier to do a visual check on the pixel to make sure they are sealed correctly, or at least appear to be.

I have to give a lot of the credit to Jim at Sandevices. I was originally creating a santa house: http://forums.lighto...cp-santa-house/ But when I went to him with E681 questions he asked why I was limiting myself to that particular shape. (of course I did purchase 4 more boards......) He showed me pictures of his lights and I was hooked. At the time he was using the pixels to display pictures. I figured that if I was going to do this I wanted video! It actually played an important part in the Live Halloween Show youtu.be/wITaUm0j_kw

That appears to be everything. I am sure I am forgetting something.

Let me know if you have any question and thank yu for your interest!

Eric

[John (oldandslow)]

Hello!

I finally have posted pictures of the pixel matrix.

http://www.facebook....71009213&type=1

I have lost the pictures I took when I was building it, but it was pretty straight forward.

1. Sandwich 5 4'X8' pieces of Corrugated Plastic with a sheet of 4'X8' 1" pegboard on top.

2. Place the pegboard in such a way that all 48 holes can be drilled into the Coro with the last hole as close to the bottom as possible

(To leave room at the top to attach it to the house)

3. Drill holes all the way through every other hole (2" spacing) Use a high quality drillbit that is sharp so yu don't have to clean the holes. Drill a 48X16 Grid

Now, I chose this number because I could use 16 pixel strings from Ray Wu with 48 pixels in each string with a power supply at the E682 bard (no power injected

down the line) and it was easy to create the matix in LightShowPro.

4. Then, cut the grid from the rest of the Coro (the original sheets are 48"X96", new dimensions are 32"X96"

5. Sandwich the top of the panel between 2 1'X2' boards. I predrilled the 3 holes and then used the coated Drywall screws with a washer on the head to secure them

6. I started in the middle, I clamped the panel to the roof and when it was level I drilled 2 holes all the way through and attached the panel with bolts. Then did the same

for the other 4 panels.

7. The easy part was done! The hardest and most painful part was pressing the pixels through the coro.

I used the flat WS2811 pixels from Ray Wu. I ordered 4 types of pixels from Ray back in July. My and my wife looked at each pixel. While the TS3001 has more levels of color, the Ws2811 were at least twice as bright, that was the selling point. As you can see, they are really bright youtu.be/ukASk78uJto These are the pixels: http://www.aliexpres..._581805567.html I do not like the cylindrical pixels. The cyllindrical pixels were easily pulled out of the coro (even just by brushing against it or wind moving the panel). And I only have 200 pixels of cyllidrical type and I have pulled the wires on 3 of them apart. I have yet to pull apart a flat pixel and I have much more of those. Also, It is easier to do a visual check on the pixel to make sure they are sealed correctly, or at least appear to be.

I have to give a lot of the credit to Jim at Sandevices. I was originally creating a santa house: http://forums.lighto...cp-santa-house/ But when I went to him with E681 questions he asked why I was limiting myself to that particular shape. (of course I did purchase 4 more boards......) He showed me pictures of his lights and I was hooked. At the time he was using the pixels to display pictures. I figured that if I was going to do this I wanted video! It actually played an important part in the Live Halloween Show youtu.be/wITaUm0j_kw

That appears to be everything. I am sure I am forgetting something.

Let me know if you have any question and thank yu for your interest!

Eric

WOW, WOW and more WOW. Thanks so much for the information. How long is the learning curve to use the software and sequence? The second question is, does your occupation have anything to do with computers and programing.

Love that train sequence. You should be very proud of your achievements

John (oldandslow)

[thebaronn]

LOL! Thank you! LSP is really easy.

And no, college dropout who works in a poker room! LOL!

Although compared to everyone who I work with, I am a computer genius! (Not saying much)

[thebaronn]

Each panel is controlled by one E682 board. I do not come close to maxing out the number of channels in each board, but I wanted something easy. I could move each panel individually and it could be its own panel somewhere in the landscape.

All 6 Boards (5 for the matrix and 1 for the bulbs on the tree) are run through 1 8port router. No internet traffic, wifi is only enabled so I could control the lights from my iphone.

I can tell you that I already have UBER-Halloween Plans! Maybe I can get a good camera person to film!

[hdracer]

How many power supplies you using? Nice work on matrix, but love the tree more!

Thanks for sharing

[Shan-Man]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I'm just wondering why you would spend $2000+ to create a difficult-to-program, low-res video wall (80x48?)when you could have used an HDTV projector (which has other uses in the off-season). I realize this matrix is much brighter than any $2000 projector, but were there other factors that led you to the matrix? Thanks for writing-up and sharing this.

[rainyoregonchristmas]

I can tell you that I already have UBER-Halloween Plans! Maybe I can get a good camera person to film!

I have a friend that runs a photo and video business using an aerial drone for his platform.  It might not quite be what you're looking for but I've wondered how many of the really large displays would look being shot from a drone zooming overhead.  The real cool part is that is he is also a professional theatrical lighting designer and would really understand the needs and challenges of filming a light show.  I actually helped him setup lights for 6 or seven plays in college back in the day, maybe that's where my desire to do rock star style light shows come from.  If you're interested, I could ask him if they would do ground work in addition to or instead of aerial work.

[thebaronn]

How many power supplies you using? Nice work on matrix, but love the tree more!

Thanks for sharing

I am using 5 power supplies. Each supply runs a board and the lights attached.

[thebaronn]

I have a friend that runs a photo and video business using an aerial drone for his platform.  It might not quite be what you're looking for but I've wondered how many of the really large displays would look being shot from a drone zooming overhead.  The real cool part is that is he is also a professional theatrical lighting designer and would really understand the needs and challenges of filming a light show.  I actually helped him setup lights for 6 or seven plays in college back in the day, maybe that's where my desire to do rock star style light shows come from.  If you're interested, I could ask him if they would do ground work in addition to or instead of aerial work.

Now that would be awesome!!  But the aerial video would be better suited for 2014, the next time Halloween is on a Friday.  In 2009 when it was on a  friday we had a MASSIVE crowd (and that was the first Halloween show in the new house, people were calling everybody they knew and asking how many shows we were doing). I think that the weekend crowd could me much better and look cooler from an aerial view. But getting a professional to record the show is something that I have always thought about. But honestly, 1 week before Halloween, I have never been more that 50/50 on whether the show was going to go down or not. I always start early, but somehow manage to blow it. This year I wasn't sure we were doing a show until the first show actually ran, no joke. Some kids were in front of my house at 6pm waiting for the show that was supposed to start......They were rewarded when LSP (at the time I put all my eggs in that basket) magically started working. I left in on repeat the whole night.

Edit 2009 Halloween was a Saturday

[thebaronn]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I'm just wondering why you would spend $2000+ to create a difficult-to-program, low-res video wall (80x48?)when you could have used an HDTV projector (which has other uses in the off-season). I realize this matrix is much brighter than any $2000 projector, but were there other factors that led you to the matrix? Thanks for writing-up and sharing this.

 

 

Hello!

I finally have posted pictures of the pixel matrix.

http://www.facebook....71009213&type=1

I have lost the pictures I took when I was building it, but it was pretty straight forward.

1. Sandwich 5 4'X8' pieces of Corrugated Plastic with a sheet of 4'X8' 1" pegboard on top.

2. Place the pegboard in such a way that all 48 holes can be drilled into the Coro with the last hole as close to the bottom as possible

(To leave room at the top to attach it to the house)

3. Drill holes all the way through every other hole (2" spacing) Use a high quality drillbit that is sharp so yu don't have to clean the holes. Drill a 48X16 Grid

Now, I chose this number because I could use 16 pixel strings from Ray Wu with 48 pixels in each string with a power supply at the E682 bard (no power injected

down the line) and it was easy to create the matix in LightShowPro.

4. Then, cut the grid from the rest of the Coro (the original sheets are 48"X96", new dimensions are 32"X96"

5. Sandwich the top of the panel between 2 1'X2' boards. I predrilled the 3 holes and then used the coated Drywall screws with a washer on the head to secure them

6. I started in the middle, I clamped the panel to the roof and when it was level I drilled 2 holes all the way through and attached the panel with bolts. Then did the same

for the other 4 panels.

7. The easy part was done! The hardest and most painful part was pressing the pixels through the coro.

I used the flat WS2811 pixels from Ray Wu. I ordered 4 types of pixels from Ray back in July. My and my wife looked at each pixel. While the TS3001 has more levels of color, the Ws2811 were at least twice as bright, that was the selling point. As you can see, they are really bright youtu.be/ukASk78uJto These are the pixels: http://www.aliexpres..._581805567.html I do not like the cylindrical pixels. The cyllindrical pixels were easily pulled out of the coro (even just by brushing against it or wind moving the panel). And I only have 200 pixels of cyllidrical type and I have pulled the wires on 3 of them apart. I have yet to pull apart a flat pixel and I have much more of those. Also, It is easier to do a visual check on the pixel to make sure they are sealed correctly, or at least appear to be.

I have to give a lot of the credit to Jim at Sandevices. I was originally creating a santa house: http://forums.lighto...cp-santa-house/ But when I went to him with E681 questions he asked why I was limiting myself to that particular shape. (of course I did purchase 4 more boards......) He showed me pictures of his lights and I was hooked. At the time he was using the pixels to display pictures. I figured that if I was going to do this I wanted video! It actually played an important part in the Live Halloween Show youtu.be/wITaUm0j_kw

That appears to be everything. I am sure I am forgetting something.

Let me know if you have any question and thank yu for your interest!

Eric

Hmm... that worked well.....

[thebaronn]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I'm just wondering why you would spend $2000+ to create a difficult-to-program, low-res video wall (80x48?)when you could have used an HDTV projector (which has other uses in the off-season). I realize this matrix is much brighter than any $2000 projector, but were there other factors that led you to the matrix? Thanks for writing-up and sharing this.

 

Because the matrix is awesome! Seriously, that is pretty much why.

 

Ok, maybe not really, I used 2500lumen projector Halloween 2011, it could not compete with the street lights. so I have researched projectors and aside from selling a kidney and buying a Barco projector (or having some kid shoot out the streetlight with his slingshot) I need something else. So I gave up, no biggie.

 

Then I started recreating my Santa house from 2008 that my wife loved. Figured I could do it with pixels instead. I purchased a bunch of CCPixels from LOR and well I moved away from them.

http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/20956-ccp-santa-house/

 

 

 

 

Hello!

I have to give a lot of the credit to Jim at Sandevices. I was originally creating a santa house: http://forums.lighto...cp-santa-house/ But when I went to him with E681 questions he asked why I was limiting myself to that particular shape. (of course I did purchase 4 more boards......) He showed me pictures of his lights and I was hooked. At the time he was using the pixels to display pictures. I figured that if I was going to do this I wanted video! It actually played an important part in the Live Halloween Show youtu.be/wITaUm0j_kw

 

And because I am sick.