Last year my Mega tree was a 36 strand X 75 pixel, this year it is a 48 strand X 150 pixel and I'm already planning for next year which should be a 64 strand X 224 pixel mega tree. All of these are 180 degrees pointed at the street.
As I increase the size of my matrix, it uses more electricity. This new matrix scheduled for NEXT Christmas will use 16 separate 350 watt 5VDC power supplies all powered by two different opposing legs of 120 power (240VAC). Half of the power supplies will be powered by one leg and the other half of the power supplies will be powered by the other leg.
Initial computations with all pixels going to white will use the maximum amount of current that my service can provide. As I design for worse case scenario I have to factor in all pixels going to white just in case that happens. Therefore I had to cut down the length of each strand from a desired 240 pixels to a safer 224 pixels/strand.
Some of the effects have a lot of pixels going to white which uses a lot of power. I need to know how much power at any given moment so that I can adjust my other channels so that I don't use too much power and pop a circuit breaker. One of the tools I use is called a 'kilowatt' power meter. See below. Everybody should have one of these.
http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1/186-3384635-4353444?ie=UTF8&qid=1419263077&sr=8-1&keywords=kilowatt+meter
This device can be temporarily inserted into the AC line and monitors exactly how much current is being consumed. It has a digital display and indicates exactly how much AC current is being used at any given time. Best $20.00 I ever spent.
If there was a indication in the nutcracker software that shows a percentage of how many pixels were energized at any given time such as a bar graph then it would give me the necessary info I needed to allow for other channels to be powered up. I have to share electricity resources between my pixels and my non pixel LED's. There is only so much electricity for everything and that has to be shared between pixels and non pixels. I have 100,000 other full wave LED's that also need to be powered up with the same electricity sometimes at the same time.
As we all know, going to either all red, all green or all blue is OK, but as we deviate to other colors we use combinations of these colors. White is the worse case scenario as this uses 100% of all three colors and uses the most amount of electricity.
As the size of our displays increase, (let's face it, this Christmas light stuff is addictive--they always increase) electricity usage starts to be become an issue. I have had to go to two separate feeds of 240 VAC to power all of my lights and I am 100% LED but as the size of our displays increase we use more electricity and electricity usage needs to be shared between all elements of the display.
Any chance of a dynamic LEDl (bar graph??) monitor that shows an indication of how many LED's are being powered while programming? This would help me during programming and let me know how much electricity was being consumed at any given moment. --Greg--