Pixie 16 not acting right.

[racerc20]

Good evening all.  Once again I need your assistance.   So i have my matrix. 20x48.  Using a pixie 16 andd a pixie 4.  With 2, 30A. 5v power supplies.  Pixels are 5v of course.  

I am having an issue when powering up. The 4 powers on,  lights flash and go into flashing led on board waiting for a connection to pc.  The 16 does not always go into blinky ready mode.  About 8 out of 10 times the led on board is OFF and the pixels are all on steady white.   Now I did this with a meter on the terms and the voltage does not drop below 5.1.  I have it set to be 5.25 when all off.   

When it does go into blinky led mode and accepts a signal from pc goes steady red. I can run one sequence as i will post a link to. When the sequence stops it usually loses connection and the led turns off.  And i have to power on and off a few times to get the board to blink and be ready.   If i try amd adjust the sequence while connected to the pixie i lose connection 7 out of ten times.

The pixie 16 starts on ID 8 and the pixie 4 picks up at the end to complete the last 4 rows.  From the link below it works some times.

Not sure where to go next.  Getting very frustrated.   Thanks

Carl

 

[dibblejr]

Carl

I replied to your message just in case you don't receive email alerts.

JR

[LightORamaJohn]

For 5v pixels, we generally use 20ma/color, so for one row: (0.20amps)(3 colors)(48 pixels) = 2.88amps/row. 8 rows, one side of a Pixie16, would be 23amps; which is well within limits. 20 rows is almost 58amps.

It might be the case that there is a peculiar power dip because all the LEDs come on full white and this is preventing the microprocessor from properly booting. The Pixie16 is powered from the port 1-8 power supply. Try pulling the row pixel string  plugs for half of the strings powered by the power supply connected to ports 1-8. If the Pixie behaves correctly, you will probably have to dedicate each of your 30 amp power supplies to one side of the Pixie16 and get a smaller supply for the Pixie4.