Messages

1

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Re: multiple power supplies with power injection

« on: November 15, 2021, 06:34:03 PM »

Ok, so just to make sure....  I have power injection theoughout my whole display and all is good from that perspective, I just want to make absolutely sure that I can tie the grounds together between my 5 volt power supply and my 12 volt power supply.  This way the controller is running on 5 volts and all my pixels are running on 12 volts but 'everybody sees the same common ground. The reason I do this is because I have noticed that the controller runs cooler on 5 volts.

Sorry, I thought you meant you were trying to run your 12v nodes with a 5v supply. I agree with previous responses that YES, you CAN do what you described above.

2

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Re: multiple power supplies with power injection

« on: November 15, 2021, 07:11:14 AM »

You can NOT power 12 volt pixels with a 5 volt power supply. They will not light up, or will be very dim at best.

You can run multiple power supplies for different sections of the string by connecting the ground and data lines through the complete string, and connect the power wire for each section to its respective power supply.

If your single power supply has sufficient capacity, but the lights at the far end are dim, you can also run an additional 2 conductor wire from the power supply to the far end of the string, connecting both + and - all the way through. That saves a power supply and is cheaper and simpler than adding a second one.

It is not a good idea to connect multiple power supplies to the same power wire. Slight variations in voltage will cause uneven distribution of the load on each power supply and could overload one of them. Also, if one of them gets unplugged the entire load will be on one supply. Depending on the power supply, it could also become a load or even a short circuit for the power supply that is powered. So, always separate the power wire so the + side of the power supplies are not connected together through the string.

3

Do You Need Help? Post it here / HinksPix Pro Long Range Receiver Setup Trouble

« on: November 12, 2021, 02:34:45 PM »

I have a HinksPix Pro with Long Range Receiver driver. I have a Smart 16 SPI from Cable 1, which then daisy chains to a Smart 16AC. I have managed to set up xLights to have the models on the correct ports in the Visualizer. Two issues:

1) When I download to the controller, if there is a model on Smart Remote A, it gives me an error saying there is a non-smart receiver model on the port. If I just change it to Smart Remote B, it is fine.

2) The outputs A2, A3, and A4 are mixed up. They all work, but A2 comes out A4, A3 on A2, and A4 on A3. I checked all the wiring and it is correct.

3) I can not get the 16AC to work at all. It seems like xLights is not setting it up properly in the controller, because even the controller test does not work. If I set it up manually, the controller test works fine.

I know that this feature is new. Has anyone had it working or is it not yet fully developed/debugged?

Suggestions?