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Ray Wu Pixel Failures


ryebred

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I bought around 24 strings of 100 12v flat nodes 2811's from Ray this year. Lost is 4 pixels to date and please with the show so far. The water proof connector got me because the water entered where the wire sticks out. This caused the first 20 pixels to burn white and rest flicker only on that string. Easy fix with contact spray!!!

 

Jeff

Jeff, if you can turn your voltage down.. you might want to do it..

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Thanks Plasma, I'll turn them down and see how they do.

Mine are not Technicolor but I'm sure they're made with the same boards just a different outer coating.

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Here is what I have been telling everyone:

 

... turn them all on white full power via software... dial down the supply until you either start to see the last pixels start to dim or change color, or until you hit about 6.5v at the string.  Which ever comes first.... then bump it up about .2v just for good measure.  

 

Those regulators for the most part are ok at 6.5v.. but 7 volts is the specific highest required voltage to allow regulation.

 

I just hope this helps keep them from burning up..  BTW, if you do a lot of flashing and not a lot of solid "on" time.. that helps as well.

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Well I have 3 5mter strips of the 12V WS2811 chips. Each chip has 3 of the 5050 LEDs. What I am seeing is that a chip and its 3 leds will no longer light up the Red part. Thus when I turn on white I have some sections of Turquoises. Now I have to say that I cut each strips so I now have 6 strips of 25 nodes/chips. I was seeing only 3 nodes where the red died, one per half strip. Tonight I see a second node go bad next to one of the earlier ones. 

Tomorrow the weather is going to start dropping. Will try to get out there before the show starts and drop the voltage some, towards 8 volts and watch to make sure the last LEDs remain burning white. Thanks for the thread, hope it helps the problem. Dang strips are not cheap. And I rather not burn out any more nodes. I can replace a few.

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Max,

 

I am surprised you are burning so many with the 3 pixels per chip ones.. that is odd.. However.. The manufacturer of the 2811 chip says there should be a resistor in series with the red LED and only the red.  It drops less voltage than the others and since these are constant current, I guess the drivers don't like the low Vdrop of the red.  I don't think Ray put a resistor in series with the red... I could be wrong.. but if it is there, you would see it..

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Well I have 3 5mter strips of the 12V WS2811 chips. Each chip has 3 of the 5050 LEDs. What I am seeing is that a chip and its 3 leds will no longer light up the Red part. Thus when I turn on white I have some sections of Turquoises. Now I have to say that I cut each strips so I now have 6 strips of 25 nodes/chips. I was seeing only 3 nodes where the red died, one per half strip. Tonight I see a second node go bad next to one of the earlier ones. 

Tomorrow the weather is going to start dropping. Will try to get out there before the show starts and drop the voltage some, towards 8 volts and watch to make sure the last LEDs remain burning white. Thanks for the thread, hope it helps the problem. Dang strips are not cheap. And I rather not burn out any more nodes. I can replace a few.

I am now see this exact failure on my 5m 12v 5050 2811 strips. Started either a single red pixel segment going out a few days ago, now I have 7 on one, 3 on another.

Should the strips and the pixel strands both have their voltages dropped?

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Plasma,

Last night I went out and adjusted my power supply. With all 150 pixels set for full on white, I had 11.99 VDC at the input of the 6804 controller. I could only adjust it down to 10.75 VDC at those terminals. I did see a bit of dimming of the whole strip. I am now down 6 sections of red. It appears that the blue and green are still good. My strips are inside of PEX tubing so I cant make any comment about how each section is made. But I thought I saw the chip and I want to say at least one if not 2 or 3 SMD resistors. I hope that I dont loose any more sections. Planing a 8 section pin wheel with 10 nodes each. So I will have some spare nodes left over from 2 50 node strips. Be interesting to dissect one of those bad sections this spring.

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Max,

It makes sense the Red would fail first.  I think your issue might be the Red only issue..   It sounds like you have the 3 RGB LEDs equal one pixel type.. If that is the case, turning the voltage down will dim your strip.  That only helps on the single RBG LED strips and pixels.  You don't have a regulator on yours.. Wish I had a fix for yours but it surely don't.  If they didn't put that resistor in the red LED string it could be an issue long term. 


I am now see this exact failure on my 5m 12v 5050 2811 strips. Started either a single red pixel segment going out a few days ago, now I have 7 on one, 3 on another.

Should the strips and the pixel strands both have their voltages dropped?

YES.. as long as you have the single RGB LED pixels.  Some have 3 RGB LEDs as a single pixel. Those are a different story

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Well I didnt turn on all of the colors like I did last night so I get white. But watching it during the show. So, while the strips where white. Looks like a few of the failed sections are working again. Wonder if there are some bad solder joints.

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Now I leave them on 24/7 because when I shut them down and turn them back on the fan makes this horrible noise. I smack it with a stick until the fan stops making the noise. I am sure the fans are going. But Im not really worried about heat. I know, very High Tech.

 

Mine started doing that - first time was when I brought it to a Mini in June.  Kind of embarassing, lol.  I could smack it and it would knock it off for awhile.

When I brought it outside this year, it did it and wouldn't shut up.  I ended up loosening the 2 screws that secure the fan to the power supply a bit, and it's been nearly silent ever since.  I think it was rubbing up against the case.

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  • 3 weeks later...

First

If you have a string of pixels and one of them stops working, do all of the pixels after the burned out one light up white? This makes it easy for me to determine the problem pixel but I am wondering why everything afterwards is stuck on white.

Then:

Yes, the dead pixel is out and every pixel after is solid white.

<snip>

I have never had a bad 2811 square pixel that didn't turn the rest white. (I would probably never notice, lol!)

 

I had read this thread a few weeks ago when it first came out.  I have 600 5V 2811 square pixels in a pixel tree that I built last year.  Never had a problem with it.  This morning when I left for work I saw this exact problem on about half of one of the strings.  We had rain yesterday so I assumed something got wet.  No time to do anything before leaving for work.  Figured I would have to fix it when I got home.  When I got home the evening show was running and the tree was perfectly.  Guess that means something dried out.  Gonna check the security video so determine exactly where the fault was.  Then gonna take a look and see if I can see anything that looked like it got wet.  See if I can fix it.

 

All this said, I am thankful for you guys discussing this failure mode.  As a result of this thread I immediately knew what the failure was.  Thanks!

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