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Adding Pixie 16


kzziboy

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I’m not a newbie to Lightorama but I am somewhat to RGB. I added a Pixie 16 last year for an RGB tree. That wasn’t too difficult. BUT now I’m adding another one to use on the outlines of the house and windows. Not sure of the best way to lay this out. So I have to ask a few questions. I included a picture of my house with lines drawn where I would like to outline with pixel strings:

1. Where is the best place to put it so I can reach all the areas I want to reach?

2. On the roof line for example…do my pixel strings have to be separate on the edges from what runs on the peak or can they be a continuous line?  Same for along the gutters. How does the program know how to differentiate what direction the strings are running so it all looks the right way when running a sequence?  I did watch some tutorials about this but I’m not sure it’s as simple as it seems. 
 

I would think a Pixie 16 would be enough to run everything I have marked with red lines in the picture. 
If anyone has a video suggestion for me to watch, that would be appreciated or any other instructions they may have to throw my way. 
Thanks so much!

5427C4F8-371D-4CB4-BE4F-E0FB7606542F.jpeg

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Best place to mount it would be as close to the center with the shortest runs possible. Any idea what the pixel count will be on all that? I would guess that would determine how the strings will need to be broken up and wired. I see 12 different parts/objects/props that need to be outlined and I think there is a 170 pixel limit (with variables) per port on the Pixie 16. I assume you will be doing 12v pixels so I'm not sure how long the leads can go to exceed the 350 watt limit if using 1 PSU. My guess is you will need 2 350 watt PSU's to power all those pixels without issues?

 

Take my input with a grain of salt, I'm far from an expert on pixels and still learning. What I would do is the layout (in your preview) on the house with the pixels first and then figure out what hardware you will need. I might be over thinking this but 2 Pixie 8's might work out better the the 1 Pixie 16.

 

 

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Everybody has their own ways of doing things.  And we all have things that we try to do or to avoid.

Here's my take on it.  I don't like creating tripping hazards, and I don't like long strings of pixels or wire length from controller to first pixel.  Part of this depends on your strings lengths.  I would do it with two Pixie 8 controllers rather than one Pixie 16.  I would mount them right next to the house on the underside of the eves at the locations marked with the green 1 and 2.  The strings are as follows:

1-1 and 1-2 and 1-5 are strings all the way around the three windows.  Does not matter which way around each window, just make sure to map it in your Preview so it matches the way it's built.

1-3 and 1-4 is the front door.  I did that as two strings so there is no wire running across the bottom of the front door to avoid the tripping hazard.  If you were short on ports, you could run wire down from the controller to the lower left corner of the door, and then pixels up the left side, across the top, and down the right side if desired.

1-6 and 1-7 are each about half the roof edge and then down the left and right side respectively of the house.

1-8 runs wire from the controller to the west edge of the house and follows the edge up and then the roof peak to the right.

2-1 and 2-2 are the same concept as the front door so you are not driving over wire.  Just like the front door, if you are short of ports, you could do each garage door as one string.  2-3 and 2-4 is the same as 2-1 and 2-2 for the right garage door.

2-5 is most of the eves over the garage and the roof edge at the right side of the house.

2-6 is the rest of the garage eves and down the corner of the garage.

2-7 is the garage peak

2-8 is the garage right side and top peak.

Here is an annotated drawing.  If you are using a recent version of one particular browser, you will not see my embedded image, but there is a link to the image below.

kzziboy_house.png

http://www.newburghlights.org/images/kzziboy_house.png

 

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In the center and as long as you do not go over 156 nodes on a port you should be good.

Remember one of my best advise is to not use 2 pixie16’s on a single network.

Networks are free as long as you have 2 red adapters.

with your house it doesn’t look like you would nee to Many extensions.

Need help setting it up feel free to ask. 

JR

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As Jim stated, everyone has their own way of doing and not doing things. Personally if it were me I would run three Pixie4, one for the front of the house, one for the roof and the third for the garage area. This keeps controllers close to the area and if for some reason one controller goes out then is doesn't affect the entire house. In most displays your house is the biggest prop and if the entire house runs on one controller and that goes out then that leaves a very large dark spot in your display. My .02 cents.

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55 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

As Jim stated, everyone has their own way of doing and not doing things. Personally if it were me I would run three Pixie4, one for the front of the house, one for the roof and the third for the garage area. This keeps controllers close to the area and if for some reason one controller goes out then is doesn't affect the entire house. In most displays your house is the biggest prop and if the entire house runs on one controller and that goes out then that leaves a very large dark spot in your display. My .02 cents.

Retired Army dogs should spend $.04 LOL

That works also. When I replace my roof lights this year I will be splitting mine from my v2 pixie16.

I already have my 4’s mounted in my attic in various locations.

I poked holes in my gable vents for the cables. Not enough crawl space to get to the soffit and go under. 

Five years 100% exposure to the sun and 5 years for my pixie16 to be mounted in the garage to 3 stories of extensions. But they work.

JR

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Remember, with all Pixies you can reverse any single port, so things to the Left of the controller, may have Node 1 at the far end of the string. This helps Keep cables short.

I'm in the more smaller Pixies camp for large areas. Jim has a great start. I also like having extra ports (unused for the current season 😀).

💡 I assigned My Pixie4 ID's as if they were Pixie 8s. Last year, one of them became an 8  (because I added a couple of props nearby) and all I had to do was add the next 4 ports to that location after a board swap.

I also agree with Jim in avoiding tripping hazards  from cords crossing traffic paths. Use Cord Protectors when unavoidable and never run AC cords in the same channel as the LOR net

 

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Thanks for the input!  I appreciate the suggestions using 2 Pixie 8s or 4 Pixie 4s…however I already have the Pixie 16 so the other setups won’t be happening. 
In my case I have 2 350 watt PS’s. I wasn’t going to run anything more than 140 pixels on one port so that shouldn’t be an issue. The windows and front door  is much shorter than 100 pixels on their ports. 
I think I will mount the Pixie 16 under the soffit in the center of the house. Having said that, how would any of you divide up the strings for the roof edges and gutters?  
For example, each window, the front door, and each garage door would have its own port. What about the actual roof edges and along the front gutter?  Do I do half to the left gutter on one port and the other half on another port?

Then Can I do this…the roof edge on the left up to the peak, then halfway across the peak all on one string/port?  That’s about 140 pixels according to its length.   Then of course the other half on another string/port. 
Not sure if that makes sense. Will this display correctly as long as what I put into the program reflects how it’s actually hung on the house?

On the attached picture, could I hook each corresponding color’s pixel strings to a different port and have it display correctly?  Even the ones that go up the roof edges and across part of the peak?

D2B4530E-7BB0-4B86-956E-2A02C731F91B.jpeg

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I use 3 ports to do my gutter line (I went with 100px max) with the controller in the corner (my garage is sideways to the house).

1) 100nodes REVERSED, 2)32 nodes, 3)100 nodes 4)Front door   all cables are under 20 ft (controller is at ground level) keeping them short,reducing voltage and signal issues (I have some gen 1 Pixies). Maxing out Ports, you WILL need to use care (and possibly, power injection) to avoid far end color issues.

You can 'jumper' between strings(say the 2 windows to the left of the door). Just use a decent wire gauge and make lots of notes where each string section starts and ends (Node numbers) You define each 'prop' node and LOR ID (port on a Pixie 16. I like to KISS. A Pixie is assigned starting at a Natural HEX boundary: 30-3F. With PRO, you can leave ID gaps for future changes )

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2 minutes ago, kzziboy said:

How do I open that preview?

Normally when someone posts a link you click on it and once it opens you can download it.

If that is the case once downloaded go to the Preview tab in S5 and use the import preview option and then you can vie it.

On phone I cant see how its linked.

JR

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open preview tab - go to button with large Icon with Left Pointing Arrow (Import/Export) then import that preview file

Edited by Jimehc
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Now by double clicking on anything - you can edit - the ID - the Pixel count - the Prop name - String segments - Starting Location (Blue Dot -  ie Controller Connection) and data direction - etc

you can also drag the string lines to match your layout - I just gave you a single string across to roof

Edited by Jimehc
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