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Weird. did I screw up?


Thebug

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So trying to get things figured out and set up for this year. Got my Pixiecon 16 all wired up and ready to rock and thought I'd do some testing. Connect lights up to all 16 ports.  Plug the thing in and low and behold a few strings aren't working. Power down replug everything in. Power back up an tada lights everywhere. (Cue happy dance). Suddenly I hear electronics frying and see smoke comming from a pixle. Unplug the pixiecon from the wall and run over there and this is what I find. (See pic). It's in the middle of the string of lights. And when I got these I ran all of them for 24hrs at 100%. 

Question is did I do something wrong or was it just a bad pixle?

20210812_164629.jpg

Edited by Thebug
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  • The title was changed to Weird. did I screw up?

Then I would say that a pixel catastrophically failed!

Now you know why you always buy spares...

 

Edited by k6ccc
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When you start replacing the fried pixel, bear in mind it may have taken the one after it out. It is also a possibility that the one before it  had a problem. 

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Depending on your soldering skills, I would replace the fried pixel and the one after it. I would check all my wiring before powering up again. Take one known good string and test each port before going "all in"

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2 hours ago, Thebug said:

So trying to get things figured out and set up for this year. Got my Pixiecon 16 all wired up and ready to rock and thought I'd do some testing. Connect lights up to all 16 ports.  Plug the thing in and low and behold a few strings aren't working. Power down replug everything in. Power back up an tada lights everywhere. (Cue happy dance). Suddenly I hear electronics frying and see smoke comming from a pixle. Unplug the pixiecon from the wall and run over there and this is what I find. (See pic). It's in the middle of the string of lights. And when I got these I ran all of them for 24hrs at 100%. 

Question is did I do something wrong or was it just a bad pixle?

20210812_164629.jpg

When did you purchase these pixels and where from? There was an issue last year with some pixels catching fire from a vendor.

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1 hour ago, Thebug said:

I only purchased 12v pixles. And they all ran for 24hrs when I first purchased them at 12v 

double check. look thru the sleeve. the board should indicate 12V on one of the terminals.

And check your power supply is still 12V +/- 10%. 💡 I set mine 5% high ( 12.6V) to compensate for wire voltage drop

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3 hours ago, k6ccc said:

First guess is you applied 12 volts to 5 volt pixels.

 

Never saw a 12v pixie burn a 5v pixel and I have had controllers sent to me mismatched. 
 

Remember the memeber from Washington? He sent me his controllers and pixels that were mismatched.

He also fried his comm chip.

Changed the comm chip and made a jumper from my bench to my 12v pixels and everything worked.

JR

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4 hours ago, Thebug said:

Pixiecon 16

By the way. There is no such product as the Pixiecon 16. It's either the Pixie 16 or the PixCon 16.

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I have a lot of spares. I could send you a small string if yiu message me your address. No charge.

They are very easy to replace.

During my Covid show I had to replace one that was from one of my circles about 20’ in the air outside my bedroom window.

I was hanging out the window and took only a few mins.

The difficult part was keeping the wires inside the pre soldered butt splice connector since gravity was pulling it down.

PM me if you want some pixels.

JR

Edited by dibblejr
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Had that happen to a strand of bullet nodes, and I'm pretty sure what happened was a power surge from somewhere {like the power company or a lightning storm in the area}.  It didn't take out the entire strand, but once I replaced the bad one, then the one before it and the one after, the entire strand was still dead from just before the fried node.  I just ended up cutting the strand down and made a smaller strand.  Still works fine, just no longer a 50 node strand, but 25 is better than none at all.  Some 12V strands are 100 nodes, so if that's in the middle, it's probably node #51.  If you do try and replace the bad node, as well as the one before and after it, and the strand after that area still doesn't work, chances are the entire strand from where the one pixel blew out are all bad.  Just cut the strand down to after the last working node and seal off the new last node to weatherproof it, if you don't, and use the cut strand outside without sealing the exposed wire on the new last node, chances are, if the wire ends get yet, chances are, you'll end up frying what's left of the strand.

I've had to cut down a few strands after I got a lightning strike near my house, and I had to seal off all the cut wires that had bare wire exposed on the ends, so the cut strands wouldn't short out if the wires got wet from rain, a sprinkler system, or snow, which I don't get in my location.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/12/2021 at 7:07 PM, ebrown1972 said:

When did you purchase these pixels and where from? There was an issue last year with some pixels catching fire from a vendor.

Ali express 

On 8/12/2021 at 8:58 PM, Don said:

By the way. There is no such product as the Pixiecon 16. It's either the Pixie 16 or the PixCon 16.

Pixcon 16

 

Good catch don

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On 8/13/2021 at 12:09 AM, Orville said:

so if that's in the middle, it's probably node #51.  If you do try and replace the bad node, as well as the one before and after it, and the strand after that area still doesn't work, chances are the entire strand from where the one pixel blew out are all bad.  Just cut the strand down to after the last working node and seal 

It's node #10 of 50

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