next year's display power supplies and lights rgb 50 count

[sysco]

would anyone have any good sites to buy power supplies, that you  have bought from that are reasonably priced,  also  sites that have rgb 50 count strings  15 watts per string  thank you 

[k6ccc]

Power supplies is easy:  Ray Wu, Amazon, almost any of the domestic lighting providers.  Scads of others.

15 watts per 50 pixels means low power pixels.  Most sources are selling the higher power 30 watts for 50 pixels strings.  As I recall, most of the LOR strings are the low power variety.

 

[sysco]

i was thinking about low power pixels meaning smaller power supplies, will look at ray wu and what do you think about lower pixels good or bad thank you for your reply

[canadianchristmas]

For power supplies:

I would personally avoid generic power supplies, as I personally have had some bad luck with them over the years.. I got some from Ray Wu back in 2012, One of the supplies was actually putting out 12v when it was labeled and supposed to be putting out 5v.. Needless to say that blew up one of my J1sys P2 controllers....

Not fun. Now I check everything with a multimeter before connecting anything.

Another Ray Wu supply I had from a 2013 batch blew up in 2021 when I pulled it out of storage and a capacitor blew up and started venting shortly after plugging it in... Thankfully no load was on it. This issue may have been due to not using that supply for a long time. I don't know, the capacitor may have just been a dud.

So I've personally found Chinese power supplies to be hit and miss at times, maybe that was just due to getting involved with this stuff earlier then most when it was newer, and like anything it can take time to have more consistency and a more mature product.

 

Needless to say I only use meanwell power supplies in my shows now. You "may" pay slightly more for them, but I personally think they're worth it. I buy mine from digikey but you could also buy from somewhere like mouser. I personally use the LRS-350 line which I find works best for my needs.

The nice thing about going through digikey or mouser is that they will give you bulk discounts if you buy ten or more. Going through them also means your getting a legitimate product, as I've seen and heard about fakes on places like amazon and aliexpress. And they will also ship your order for free if it's $100 or more I think.

When I was planning for 2021 I looked at what Ray and Paul had for power supplies and asked for shipping quotes, with shipping factored in the Chinese generic power supplies would have costed just as much if not more in one case than the meanwell's would have from digikey.

So the cost of meanwells is comparable to the generics in my case.

My show used 15 meanwell supplies this last year and none of them let me down.

Just my thoughts.

[canadianchristmas]

As for pixels..

I've been personally looking and considering these ones from Ray..

They are 5v but a lot of these smaller WS2812B types often have a far lower current draw then typical WS2811 nodes. A lot of these you could even run off 5v usb power, due to them just being more efficient.

There is also the GS8208 based pixels which are getting talked about more on the AUS forum as of late, which are known to have a very low current draw when compared to WS2811 even while running at 12v.

The reality is the the typical WS2811 nodes, especially 12v versions are inherently inefficient and arguably evil lol.

[dibblejr]

59 minutes ago, sysco said:

i was thinking about low power pixels meaning smaller power supplies, will look at ray wu and what do you think about lower pixels good or bad thank you for your reply

Blair, my friend, send me a PM.  

Skip Ray. As a matter of fact if you have read some of my reviews on the number of bad pixels during the "covid years" I would avoid any except LOR. Why, because of the no nonsense warranty LOR has. You will not find a better warranty policy. With about a 50% loss of pixels that I had direct shipped to friends as gifts I will avoid all sources besides LOR. Others have has similar experiences. Lack of chips, lack of QC or whatever it is, let someone else worry about the warranty.

JR 

[sysco]

16 hours ago, canadianchristmas said:

As for pixels..

I've been personally looking and considering these ones from Ray..

They are 5v but a lot of these smaller WS2812B types often have a far lower current draw then typical WS2811 nodes. A lot of these you could even run off 5v usb power, due to them just being more efficient.

There is also the GS8208 based pixels which are getting talked about more on the AUS forum as of late, which are known to have a very low current draw when compared to WS2811 even while running at 12v.

The reality is the the typical WS2811 nodes, especially 12v versions are inherently inefficient and arguably evil lol.

thank you for your reply will look at aus forum  have you heard anything about a new company out of the U.S.A ,doing pixels have seen a video on utube

[canadianchristmas]

15 minutes ago, sysco said:

thank you for your reply will look at aus forum  have you heard anything about a new company out of the U.S.A ,doing pixels have seen a video on utube

Ah, I assume your talking about "Can-pix-plus" and "Pix-plus-USA".

From what I've heard their pixels don't use epoxy, they are doing them with injection molded plastic.

One small correction though is that their pixels are not made in the US or Canada, they are made in South Africa.

But obviously the 5mm ws2811 led's come from China never the less.

They seem like an interesting company(s).

[canadianchristmas]

Another note about pixels as JR kind've pointed out, is that the quality from some manufactures has been hit and miss over the last few years.

 

The biggest issues I've seen seem to be the use of lower quality epoxy mixtures, and not allowing enough time for the epoxy to harden, leaving pixels with soft almost "gummy bear" like epoxy. This can allow for moisture ingress, causing problems.

The other issue I've seen over the last few years is the onset of cheaper "regulated" pixels which use a buck converter in each pixel to drop the voltage instead of the more conventional resistor based configurations used in 12v based pixels.

The buck converters in some of the 2020 batches were defective and were getting so hot they were sometimes causing pixels to melt, and in one case someone had a pixel catch fire, but pixel fires are rare, as you need oxygen to be able to get into the pixel. But if you combine high temperatures with poor quality epoxy that may in rare instances allow oxygen to get in, you may just have the perfect "one in a million" storm for a pixel fire.

 

So I personally would stay clear of bullet and square pixels from Ray Wu for now.

 

However, the pixels I linked from Ray are not bullet, or square nodes, and they are not 12v pixels, so I'd consider them safer.

One note about 12v pixels is that they are often VERY inefficient, they are convenient for longer runs with regards to needing less power injection when compared to 5v; but very inefficient never the less.

Pretty much every pixel runs at 5v. 12v pixels use either resistors or regulators to drop that voltage down to 5v, where the pixel can operate happily.

However those resistors or regulators take all that extra voltage and convert it into heat. It is basically wasted energy. About 75% of the energy going into 12v pixels is often dispersed as heat.

That is why 5v pixels run cool for the most part with little (if any heat at all) and they are cheaper due to not needing any components to drop the voltage down to a useable level. (However if you can get 5v pixels with a resistor on red, those are always nice).

It also means less power supplies as each supply can run more pixels using 5v.

Speaking for my show personally I would've had to use around 24 power supplies to run my show on 12v. I was able to use 15 due to running mostly 5v pixels.

 

EDIT:

To add, I thought I'd mention my personal vendor of choice for the majority of my bullet pixels used in 2021. I bought mostly from Paul Zhang / Tom Zheng. I found their epoxy quality to be very good and tough, and due to only buying 5v I didn't have to worry about the possibility of faulty regulators or resistors generating excess heat.

If you don't want to go directly from China there are US based vendors like Wired watts and RGB man (RGB man's pixels come from Paul BTW).

 

EDIT 2:

I thought I'd add this.

The pixel report https://www.pixel.report/report-data

The Some people have pointed out that the data may be slightly flawed due to vendors like Ray selling the most pixels and therefore having the most problematic reports.

But regardless it is still interesting to look at when assessing vendors. 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by canadianchristmas

[sysco]

the pixel report is very informative just looked at it thank you for the information  you say you are using 15 power supplies how many watts per power supply and how many pixels on each string

[sysco]

19 hours ago, dibblejr said:

Blair, my friend, send me a PM.  

Skip Ray. As a matter of fact if you have read some of my reviews on the number of bad pixels during the "covid years" I would avoid any except LOR. Why, because of the no nonsense warranty LOR has. You will not find a better warranty policy. With about a 50% loss of pixels that I had direct shipped to friends as gifts I will avoid all sources besides LOR. Others have has similar experiences. Lack of chips, lack of QC or whatever it is, let someone else worry about the warranty.

JR 

jr sent you a pm thank you for your reply

[Al Saunders]

I totally agree with JR. LOR has high quality control and a great warrantee. They stand behind their products and are very easy to work with! 

Just my .02 though. 😁

Al 

[dibblejr]

8 hours ago, sysco said:

thank you for your reply will look at aus forum  have you heard anything about a new company out of the U.S.A ,doing pixels have seen a video on utube

I personally would not do any business with a new company, why, because every other new company you read about on FB the past two years have not been good for the consumer. If people that have been buying and selling pixels for years cannot seem to get a lower failure rate what makes any one think a new company can. If auto manufacturers are having problems getting chips imagine the pixels chips.

I wont even discuss the amount of $ I lost the last two years trying to help friends out. All are members here and all had the same almost 50% or more failure rate at a "no warranty" policy which means I lost $ and even though I meant well I also feel I lost some credibility and still feel bad even though there was nothing I could have done different since LOR and almost everyone else was out of pixels.

I will not throw anyone under the bus, that's not who I am and what I am about. I am realistic and understand the pains that business have been suffering. So I will just give a trusted business my support and $ and that is LOR as previously said. You may pay a few dollars more per string but with that comes a 2 year piece of mind warranty, unless they some day change their policy.

I have thousands of pixels and all of my pixels pre 2020 I have only had 2 burn out. One was my fault when I accidentally grounded one out on one of my matrix frames and the other was well, something that happened for my covid show just a failure. 

As for psu's since LOR doesn't sell the internal power supplies I guess I have faired very well with whatever brand I can get my hands on through Amazon or whatever vendor has them on sale.

You know my builds, you know I use 2 psu's per 8 and 16 port controllers with no less than 800 watts (400 watts per bank) on my controllers. Buy what you can and as long as you test when you receive them at least Amazon or paypal you can reach out to the vendors and not have a middle man to resolve issues.

CanadianChristmas  put out some good info as well.

On another not - glad to hear from you or see that you are still around. Its been a while.

JR

 

5 hours ago, sysco said:

jr sent you a pm thank you for your reply

Didnt see these replies until I replied to your text. I know its late. LOL I have had some very busy days.

JR