Author Topic: Only 50 Pixels?  (Read 1143 times)

Offline chrisroug

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Only 50 Pixels?
« on: December 10, 2021, 08:03:50 AM »
Good morning! This is my first post here. My name is Chris, and I work aerospace on California. I bought 4 pixel strings 50ea to play with and get ready for something small next year. Controller is a LOR Pixie8.

Within xlights I tried a window frame, and polyline and I can only get 50 pixels to work. I noticed there is no way to define how many strands, and it's based on channel. So I set 300 channels and it still only lights 50. I look forward to learning this throughout the year a d have something setup for next year.

Any direction here? Thank you!


Offline Gilrock

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Re: Only 50 Pixels?
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2021, 08:15:42 AM »
First thing is please don?t buy anymore Pixie controllers unless you want to use LOR software.  They don?t work very well in xLights due to their proprietary protocol.

Regarding only getting 50 pixels lighting it sounds like the Pixie doesn?t have it outputs configured for the correct number of lights.

Offline chrisroug

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Re: Only 50 Pixels?
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2021, 10:04:02 AM »
Thank you, noted. I have the pixie set to 100 and they all work within their hardware utility.

I will order a Falcon and play with that as well, unless there is a better one you recommend?

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk


Offline Gilrock

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Re: Only 50 Pixels?
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2021, 01:32:53 PM »
If you goto xlights.org and click the blue Zoom room button you can try to get live help.

Offline JonB256

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Re: Only 50 Pixels?
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2021, 02:19:03 PM »
I will order a Falcon and play with that as well, unless there is a better one you recommend?

There may be a very few "equal" controllers but none better than the Falcons.

Offline szaske

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Re: Only 50 Pixels?
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2021, 04:26:51 PM »
The live help really is an awesome, little known "feature" of XLights. It's great and if you can I'd suggest you try to connect to it.  I also strongly recommend Falcon controllers. The general approach you want to follow is:

1. Connect the strands to your controller.
2. Get your controller to recognize them. I'm not familiar with the Pixie, but most controllers have a test mode, sounds like that's working for you at least to 100.
3. Once they work in the controller, then you need to add the controller to your XLights setup. I don't like to use the "Auto Layout Models" feature so I usually turn that off. Much more helpful in my opinion is the "Visualise" button. It should show you each port on your controller and what is connected to each port. Also helpful is the Tools/Test feature. For testing your controllers it's very helpful.

If you're willing to talk with a stranger I'd be happy to chat with you. I enjoy the hobby and getting new people into it is a pleasure to me, so if that's of interest send me a DM with your phone number and I'll text you to setup a call.