THE QUESTION: outside of obviously burned to death Christmas light pixels, can I test 12V 12mm led pixels with ws2811 chips by the strand instead of having to cut each pixel out individually?
THE STORY: I spent 20 years last October - November building a 12V 8,000 led pixel matrix testing every 12mm 100 pixel strand as I went along. I used 400W power supplies and inserted at the beginning/end of each strand. Tested perfectly. I cut 6 foot 2 wire extension cords in half and use the male end for the strings and attach the female end to bring the juice from the PSU. After I finished a little showing off using X-Lights to prove it was awesome, I puffed out my chest and left it a few days basking in my glory. Two days later my son wanted to show it to his friends but didn't understand the male plugs were supposed to connect to the PSUs and plugged them directly into the wall. I came running when I smelled the smoke and unplugged the power strips as quickly as I could, but it was too late. My son is devastated and I love him for being proud, all the help he gave me building this thing, and just being a really great kid. In fact, I erroneously thought someone else made the mistake but that's an even longer story.
THE RESULTS: Several strings weren't connected and are fine. Others flicker, maybe one or two randomly spaced pixels light on a strand with no apparent consistency, some will come to life if I cut pixels out, etc, etc., but I can find no way to locate good and bad pixels without chopping the stands up, sometimes down to one pixel at a time. I'm getting the 12V at the end and random pixels light and random pixels don't when connected to the controller.
THOUGHTS: Would it be possible to connect just the data cable to my Falcon V3 controller and run the pixels in front of a small store bought Tesla coil to identify the good ones? I've tried visual inspection and can weed out the obvious ones, but nothing else I do other than cutting and testing them one at a time seems to work consistently and I'm burning through fuses.
FINAL: I very much want to turn this into a more positive result more for my son than anything else. If I had to, I guess I have the time to test thousands of pixels one at a time, but I also would like to learn. I've seen others who have similar problems on a thankfully smaller scale and to date have not found any solution.
APPRECIATION: If you have any suggestions you can bet the farm I would be extremely grateful.
