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Connecting P10 LED panels to LOR?


brichi

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Damn, I have not even built my first P10 panel yet - PiHat expected Tuesday, and I have now ordered 7 P5 panels (6 plus one spare) for another matrix...  This stuff is addictive!  72 universes for six panels (gulp).

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Dennis Laff said:

Jim don't forget you got a whole lot of new pixels to use also !

Yea, I know.  Scary part, is the 2,000 pixels I bought from you is not enough.  That's why I was asking where you got them so I could get more from the same source.  I have another 500 on order from HLE, and I may bump that up some more.  In my pixel tree rebuild this year, it will go from 12 x 50 to 24 x 100 pixels.  First time I saw Debtoews 24 string CCR tree, I was impressed and decided on the spot to go for 24 strings on my rebuild.  And currently looks like 108 universes for the P5 & P10 panels so my E1.31 network is going to get a lot busier!  I think I want to get the connection from the show computer to the data cabinet network switch upped from 100BaseT to Gigabit.  Where most of that E1.31 traffic will be going already is Gig, but the show computer connects to the switch on a 10/100 megabit port.

 

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1 hour ago, k6ccc said:

  In my pixel tree rebuild this year, it will go from 12 x 50 to 24 x 100 pixels.  First time I saw Debtoews 24 string CCR tree, I was impressed and decided on the spot to go for 24 strings on my rebuild.  

 

disregard. 1) wrong thread 2) found your website. Thx. 

Edited by whyintheworld
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My tree for the past six years has been 2.5 inch spacing on each of the 12 strings for a total height from the center of the bottom to center of the top pixel of 122.5 inches.  I am planning on about 1.35 inches so the tree will grow about a foot.  The intent is that the spacing of each RGB LED will be very close to the spacing of the LEDs on a CCR.  The major difference being that I will be able to control all 100 pixels individually rather than 50 groups of three.  You can see a lot of details on the existing tree at:

http://newburghlights.org/pixel_tree.html

 

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My project for next season is a ten circle  ccr  tree  never seen one. I've had  4 ccr circles for a few years now I've built 6 more .  So I'll have 4 on bottom row than 3 on that next  row then 2 then 1      ground to top 20 ft. Looks good on paper  

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1 hour ago, Dennis Laff said:

My project for next season is a ten circle  ccr  tree  never seen one. I've had  4 ccr circles for a few years now I've built 6 more .  So I'll have 4 on bottom row than 3 on that next  row then 2 then 1      ground to top 20 ft. Looks good on paper  

Great idea Dennis. That will look awesome!

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On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 1:49 PM, k6ccc said:

Damn, I have not even built my first P10 panel yet - PiHat expected Tuesday, and I have now ordered 7 P5 panels (6 plus one spare) for another matrix...  This stuff is addictive!  72 universes for six panels (gulp).

 

 

Hi Jim  received my Raspberry pi 3 model B  it came with 2 heat sinks do you need to install them?  my plan is to just run 4   P10 panels from the pi Thanks Dennis

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4 minutes ago, Dennis Laff said:

Hi Jim  received my Raspberry pi 3 model B  it came with 2 heat sinks do you need to install them?  my plan is to just run 4   P10 panels from the pi Thanks Dennis

News to me.  Mine did not come with heat sinks separate from the Pi.  I'll have to look at it when I get home to see if there were any already attached - I don't remember seeing any.

I'm supposed to receive my PiHat today which means I can at least hook up some of the panels to the Pi to start playing with them...  It's been killing me this weekend to have the Pi, and the panels, but not the PiHat to be able to hook them together  :angry:

 

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59 minutes ago, Dennis Laff said:

Hi Jim  received my Raspberry pi 3 model B  it came with 2 heat sinks do you need to install them?  my plan is to just run 4   P10 panels from the pi Thanks Dennis

I have never needed them and am running 32 panels.

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52 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

News to me.  Mine did not come with heat sinks separate from the Pi.  I'll have to look at it when I get home to see if there were any already attached - I don't remember seeing any.

I'm supposed to receive my PiHat today which means I can at least hook up some of the panels to the Pi to start playing with them...  It's been killing me this weekend to have the Pi, and the panels, but not the PiHat to be able to hook them together  :angry:

 

soon young Jedi, soon!! :) 

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25 minutes ago, caniac said:

soon young Jedi, soon!! :) 

USPS tracking says both packages I'm getting today were delivered 1 1/2 hours ago.  Now it will take anywhere from an hour to a day to get them from the mail room to me...

 

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2 hours ago, caniac said:

I have never needed them and am running 32 panels.

Caniac thanks for the info . Dennis 

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On 1/14/2018 at 11:49 AM, k6ccc said:

Damn, I have not even built my first P10 panel yet - PiHat expected Tuesday,

Which PiHat did you order? 

I ordered one from Hanson Electronics (http://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/product/rpi-p10/ ), and one kit from Ron's Holiday Lights (https://ronsholidaylights.com/raspberry-pi-matrix-adapter/ )

 

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https://www.crockettfantasyoflights.com/product/nano-matrix-pihat/

https://www.crockettfantasyoflights.com/product/pre-sale-matrix-pihat/

The Nano-matrix has one output and the matrix has three (ignore the part of the URL that says Pre-sale - they have them in stock).

 

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47 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

The Nano-matrix has one output and the matrix has three (ignore the part of the URL that says Pre-sale - they have them in stock).

Thanks for the feedback.  I just added CFOL's pre-sale "Matrix PiHat" to my pre-sale order.   I'll use the matrix more as a backup and for future expansion of P10 sign/prop.  I don't need these P10 items immediately, so I'm  willing to wait for CFOL to fill the entire order.

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Yesterday my two PiHats actually made it to me (only took two days to get from the mail room to me - 100 yards away).  So did the second Raspberry Pi 3.  So last night (to keep the story short), I configured the second Pi and hooked up two panels and after some parameter changes, I got the panels to light both from the test lights utility in FPP and from LOR!  WooHoo!!!

Tonight I will hook up more of the panels and do some more testing.

BTW, in the useful information department for people planning P10 panels, I measured the current draw in full white.  Came out to about 2.1 amps per panel.

 

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I don't think you can control the brightness in LOR but in Xlights I have the brightness in dimming curve at -30 as recommended by a few users and it looks awesome and the current draw was less then an amp per panel at white. Im running 54 panels and the BBB of 1 5v p/s

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1 hour ago, brichi said:

I don't think you can control the brightness in LOR but in Xlights I have the brightness in dimming curve at -30 as recommended by a few users and it looks awesome and the current draw was less then an amp per panel at white. Im running 54 panels and the BBB of 1 5v p/s

I assume you mean adjusting brightness of an entire prop with one setting - since you absolutely can control brightness of RGB channels in LOR.  One of the "playing around" that I did in LOR last night was ramping and shimmer of some effects.  Worked just fine.  I expect to have between 8 and 12 panels up this evening. 

As for total power draw, I expect to have both matrix Tune To signs (12 P10 panels in one and 6 P5 panels in the other) plus between 50 & 250 GE Color Effects bulbs, and a SanDevices E682 powered off one 70 amp power supply.  The Pi 3s will be powered separately from a battery backed up source.

 

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1 hour ago, brichi said:

I don't think you can control the brightness in LOR but in Xlights I have the brightness in dimming curve at -30 as recommended by a few users and it looks awesome and the current draw was less then an amp per panel at white. Im running 54 panels and the BBB of 1 5v p/s

Both FPP on the Pi and on the BBB have options to set a brightness level of the P# panels.   For the P# panels, there is a big advantage of doing it via the FPP setting instead of in xLights or LOR.    When you do it in the sequencer, you reduce the number of shades of color that can shown.   For example, at 50% brightness, you get 0 to 128 for each channel instead of 0-256.  

When doing it via the FPP setting, for the P# panels (this doesn't apply to the ws2811 outputs), FPP can control the width of each "on" pulse so it dims by shortening the On pulse for each "bit".  Thus, you can retain the 256 shades for each color.   Thus, images and such can look a bit better.   

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