Intermediate pixel guide

Welcome to the more intermediate guide on how pixels work.

If you haven't read the beginners guide please do so here is the link to that guide.

• Pixels a beginners guide

A quick overview of sequencing

If you have been looking around the forums, at other sites, or talking to anyone who has computer controlled lights. You have heard the term sequencing, if you haven't heard it yet, you will. What is this sequencing and how does it apply to me your asking. Sequencing is what is done on your computer, this is the software that generates the signals turning on or off the lights. It sounds really difficult but in reality most of the work of the software is done in the background with you not seeing it. There are a lot of different sequencing software out there, the DIY community does have several that we use and share with each other. There is also some software that is commercially available. All the software does the same thing, generates the signals to run the controller boards. The software interface on the screen shows like a spreadsheet with time across the top left to right, and your channels down the left side starting at 1 on the top. When you assign a song to the sequence most of the sequencers will display the song in wave form at the top so you can visually see areas that have higher volumes (this can help you in getting the lights to start and stop when that volume happens). You then have the fun (yes this really is fun not joking) of putting in the effects you want (these can include fades (called ramps), steady on, twinkle or a myriad of other effects) and at what time you want the effect to start and stop. Most sequencers have a preview screen, this is just a screen that has a picture (of your house I hope) with a layer over it that has the locations of where each channel is, see your individual software to set up the preview correctly. As you assign effects you can view them using the preview watching the lights turn on and off in time to the music. If you don't like where an effect is you can adjust it and then preview again to make sure your show is exactly how you want it to be.

NOTE Sequencing is the thing that takes the most amount of time to do, start early. Depending on how many channels you have sequencing can take upwards of 2 hours for just 30 seconds of song so a show with 3-5 songs lasting 6-10 minutes could take several days to sequence.

Which pixel is right for me?

In the first guide, pixels vs traditional lighting was covered, this should aid you in selecting a pixel profile. This will now expand on some of the rest mentioned in that section.

Smart vs dumb and how this applies to your show.

Dumb pixels as you know only take up 3 channels per strip so sequencing them is much easier, the major factor in going for these pixels is the cost vs future needs. While the dumb pixel stings, no matter the profile, are less expensive. Adding several of these may require several controller boards to get the color pattern your looking for. Their savings on the strings may be offset or even make them more expensive than going with smart pixels due to the number of controllers. Dumb pixels were the first pixel strings introduced, and generally are being replaced by the smart pixel. If you decide on the dumb pixel stings you will know why you chose these.

Smart pixels take up a lot of channels depending on how many pixels you use, making sequencing a lot more challenging (their are tools built into most sequencing software to help deal with the vast number of channels used in smart pixels). Smart pixels can be controlled like a dumb pixel string in that we can individually turn several pixels in a row the same color. If at some point in the future you are going to want to change from dumb pixels to smart pixels on a prop, eave, or window outline, due to the effects that smart pixels allow, the suggestion is to get the smart pixels and control them like dumb pixels. To change from dumb to smart at a later time means repurchasing the pixel strings and the controller boards. Right now smart pixel strings are about 10-30% higher in cost, the controller boards are about 50% more expensive, but as was stated above you may have far less controllers. When choosing smart pixels you understand the higher possible initial cost will allow the effects your wanting either now or in the future.

5 volt vs 12 volt what this really means.

In the electricity world wattage is everything, its how you are billed every month typically in kilowatt hour. This sounds like a big number but its really not. A watt of power is voltage times the amperage (current). Amperage is increased as resistance is decreased. In lighting when you decrease the resistance you increase the brightness (a result of more amperage flowing through), a 100 watt bulb is far brighter than a 40 watt bulb, the input voltage is still either 110 volts or 220 volts household voltage but the 100 watt has lower resistance so it glows brighter that's the difference between them, The 100 watt bulb uses up that 1000 watts in 10 hours, the 40 watt bulb would take 25 hours to use 1 kwh (kilowatt hour). Since resistance is determination of the brightness the 5 volt is much more power efficient. As the resistance is the same inside the pixel elements, 5 volts times that amperage is a smaller number than 12 volts times that same amperage. Since 5 volt is much more efficient why do we have 12 volt your asking. Well as electricity travels down a wire the wire has a small amount of resistance in it, the bigger around the wire the less resistance is felt (I know, not what you were thinking there right?). As voltage encounters resistance (both from the wire and the pixels themselves) a portion of it is consumed lowering the voltage available further down the wire. Since a pixel runs on about 3.3 volts (a built in resistor drops the input voltage to the 3.3 volts needed), a 5 volt input there is very little wiggle room for that voltage drop before the voltage is no longer be able to correctly power the pixels. In a 12 volt pixel string we have a lot more wiggle room so longer runs are possible with the 12 volt input. We can hook strings of pixels together (both dumb and smart) but at some point the voltage is too low to properly power the pixels. To overcome this we can reintroduce the 5 volt or 12 volt (a reset button of the voltage so to say) at a point or points in longer runs, this is referred to as power injection. As you can see resistance plays a role in both amperage and voltage affecting the number of watts used in anything electrical. If you peeked at the wiring smart pixels wiki you saw at the beginning a general rule of thumb, power inject 5 volt pixels every 50 pixels, and on 12 volt pixels every 100. Depending on how long you want the pixel strings to be will better help you determine what voltage is right for you.

Whats up with these Protocols?

As stated in the beginners wiki there is a bunch of different protocols, mostly determining the right protocol for you depends on how "big" your show is or is going to get, and how future proof you want to be. At first we have only a "few" channels ranging from 16 for traditional lighting to a couple thousand for doing all smart pixels, all these channels need to be refreshed or resent out several times a second to keep the lights doing what you want them to do. Each protocol has so much data it can send out each second (baud rate) some of the original protocols used are around the speeds of early modems 16000 bits per second. These are wonderful for traditional lighting, since the protocol has been around a longer time its costs are generally low, pixels on the other hand have the need for several thousand or even several million bits to go out each refresh, so those early protocols are far too slow for pixels. The rate of refreshes determines how often the lights can change states (dim, brighten, or in pixels change colors). They eye can generally pick up anything slower than 23 times per second (think of flicker on a TV set) Most TV's refresh their picture 29-60 times per second. In computer controlled lighting you also want to maintain at least a 25 refresh per second rate or your effects will look to jump from element to element instead of flowing from element to element. We talk in electronics mostly in milliseconds (1000 milliseconds = 1 second) so 25 refreshes per second works out to about 40 milliseconds between them, if were sending that several thousand bites of data every 40 milliseconds we need several hundred thousand baud rates to keep up. Enter the newer and faster protocols, these can range from several hundred thousand to over one hundred million bits of data every second.

This will try to talk about the protocols in terms of speed from slowest to fastest and their pros and cons. Note: there are other protocols not listed here that generally are not used in the DIY community and will not be covered by this wiki.

Serial RS232 - This is the oldest and slowest protocol, it is not used in pixels due to its baud rate limitations. Though it can be used in traditional lighting systems as it is very inexpensive for equipment.

Serial RS485 - This is the first usable protocol by pixels, serial data is put out either by the serial ports on the back of your computer (some modern computers have eliminated one or both of these so your computer may or may not have these) or on the USB (universal SERIAL bus) we need a piece of equipment to convert the serial data to RS485 protocol, typically these are either a plug in adapter using the serial ports on the back of your computer or a "dongle" on a unused USB port. Both of these function the same converting serial data to the RS485 protocol. RS485 is a standard that supports up to 32 drivers and 32 receivers on a single computer output. Its data rate can vary from 100kb/s to 10mb/s making it very flexible for use in large pixel displays. You will find that a lot of the commercial controllers use this (light o rama uses this protocol almost exclusively). The biggest draw back for this protocol is the 32 controller (universe?) limit, at first you may not need that many but as your show grows you may find you need more than 32. You can always add another dongle increasing your controller limit though. This is widely available and relatively inexpensive.

Renard The Renard protocol, created by Phil Short (originator of the Renard controller concept and firmware) is quite a robust, solid and easy-to-use communication setup. However, like most things, there are some limitations to making it work properly. For one thing, Renard is primarily a "serial" protocol and uses the COM ports on your computer -- either native com ports built into the computer or com ports added using USB dongles. Much like the RS485. Data rates are 10kb/s to 460kb/s. (borrowed from a post by dirk in the renard forum, i don't know much about this so if you guys could expand on this some more would be great)

E1.31/ACN - This is a suite of protocols that is most commonly used to control theatrical lighting, audio and effects. ACN can be combined and configured with other standard protocols. It can be implemented on a variety of networks, typically using Ethernet (E1.31). This is a form of carrying data, but not the final form, meaning we need a bridge to have the DMX512 sent to the boards. Its rates can vary from 256kb/s to 100mb/s. This uses the same protocol as your internet connection on your computer. E1.31/ACN data is not recommended to be broadcast on your home wired or wireless network as the amount of data going through it will interrupt or bring your internet to a crawl. Instead we typically use a private network to run this protocol. Because this uses Ethernet, a knowledge of ip addressing as well as mac addresses is needed to configure this, making this a little more difficult for a new person to grasp right away (unless your the I.T. guy). This being the newest protocol its availability is lower and costs are higher than using older technology. This can support over 16,000 universes making it a very future proof way to go.

All the protocols carry the DMX512 signal. DMX512 is a standard that describes a method of digital data transmission between computers and lighting equipment and accessories. It is the language for many solid state lighting boards. This is the signal that the boards use to turn the lights on or off and dim and brighten, but is not the native language of smart pixels. In a smart pixel board the dmx signal is converted to "pic" language that the pixels speak by a chip on the board.

In summary here you have computer to output (either serial or Ethernet) to bridge (either a dongle on the usb for serial, or bridge for e1.31/acn) to board. Important controller boards are not universal, the protocol and controller board must match.

Note in some high density smart pixel boards the bridge is built into the board allowing direct connection to e1.31 networks.

Now lets see how all this new found knowledge applies to the controller boards themselves.

TBA later or expanded on as people get to it :D

Going in order as they are listed in the forums:

Renard - These boards are truly DIY. These boards are designed at the circuit board level by members on these forums. They are usually sold as kits that come as a circuit board and all the things you will need to solder onto it. If you are not able to or do not want to solder these are not the boards for you. These boards are tweaked to give the "best bang for the buck" though when it comes to controller boards. There is plenty of support for these boards so don't shy away from them because their "hands on", besides there is a special pride in watching someone stare starry eyed at your show knowing that it was built by you (not just assembled by you)

FM transmitters - your audience needs to hear the music or else its just blinking lights. FM transmitters get the music to them through their car radio, helps keep the neighbors sane as they don't listen to the same songs repeated night after night if you ran a speaker outside.

Arduino/raspberry pi - These are mini computers used in the DIY community, the arduino are very small single task computers usually used to control a single output of lights, these require programs called "sketches" to be loaded on them to do their one task. These are used also in Komby stuff explained a little bit later. Raspberry pi is used as a replacement for a computer in some shows, this is a much bigger horsepower mini computer than the arduino. These are able to be loaded with a operating system (NOOBS seriously this is the name of its operating system) and a falcon player software (they are known as falcon pi players or just falcon players abbreviated as FPP). They have Ethernet and USB ports. Show data is stored on a zip drive (not to be confused with zip ties which you will need) and output to the USB ports and Ethernet. This is capable of outputting all the different protocols used. For more info or seeing if this is right for you post in the forums

SSR/ solid state relays - these are the switches for traditional lighting, they control ac currents not applicable to pixels.

E1.31/E680/E681 ect - this is a forum dedicated to all the dmx over Ethernet protocols.

Vixen 3 - This is one of the DIY sequencing software designed and still being upgraded by several members on this forum. (others include Xlights/nutcracker, Vixen +, Vixen 2.1)

Nutcracker - this is the effect used in sequencing software to ease in sequencing pixels also refers to xlights

Komby wireless - Komby is a member of these forums, his solutions are for adding a small amount of pixels (1 or 2 universes) in a small area and doing it wirelessly (instead of using a cable to get the data to the board) typically it uses an arduino combined with an arduino ethernet shield and a few other board of Komby design (yes his boards need to be soldered by you) to make the transmitter(referred to as a Komby sandwich), then a receiver that is his design (soldered by you) the nice thing about this is its computer - output e1.31 (network switch if more than 1 e1.31 connection is needed) - komby sandwich - komby receiver to pixels no need for bridges or a controller board. Each Komby sandwich can handle 1 universe. Once again he is a member of the forums and does support his stuff quite well just as renard does. And there is the gratification of "I did this" when the lights go on.

Other stuff - Controllers and wireless not covered under the above, usually for commercial products that others have that are wanting to add non commercial DIY stuff to and seeing how to do this (you get the idea) Note There is a list of vendors in the forums these are individuals who are active in the DIY community and some have pre assembled boards for a great price (not as inexpensive as you doing the soldering, but not near the other commercial products). We here in the DIY community try to support each other not only with knowledge but with our dollars as well (buying from other DIY members)

Ok so I know what pixels what protocol and what controllers I am interested in now what?

Now that we have the idea of what were getting its time to look at how much we are getting. SET A BUDGET if your max you can spend is say 800 us dollars then set the budget for around 500 us dollars as you will always run over. For info on what you need before you buy your first pixels or boards the forum under Main Category, How do I get started, has several sticky threads that list some items that you can start stocking now. Some of them you may already have others are things you may not have thought of. There also is a sticky on drawing your design out and figuring out what you need to buy as far as strings, extension cords, cables, ect. If you find that your design is over your budget scale it back you don't need 10 arches, 8 mini trees, the eaves, and the mega tree your first year. To be exact i would discourage anyone from doing that much even if their budget allowed it. All that has to be built, trouble shot (not everything is going to work the first time you plug it in), and on top of doing that you need to sequence everything!!!! Start small maybe the eaves this year, next year add a few things. Nothing brings people back to see the show more than every year having something new. Now you have the "necessities" from the forum (did you remember zip ties?) and a pretty good idea of what you can afford/realistically sequence, you also have a decent knowledge of what is needed as far as controllers, pixels, and such. Its time to hit the forums. (wait were not buying stuff yet?) A good place to start is to ask if you have everything correct by posting, in the correct forum (renard stuff in the renard sections), your diagram including controllers, pixels, bridges, and power outlets. While these wiki's gave you a general knowledge the individuals here can help you to refine your diagrams add stuff you didn't think of or something not covered in these wiki's. NOTE you will receive a lot of different ways to accomplish what your wanting, if someone suggests something your unfamiliar with then ask them for clarification or "google" it and see if that may be a way for you to go, there is no right way to control your show its up to you to decide on the final design. Once you have the final design then start ordering stuff (remember some of this stuff may need soldering, may be coming from overseas, or may just be out of stock and you may need to wait before receiving the items or using them). After you have the items begin testing them then assembling them (this is where the zip ties come in) after you have everything assembled and tested that its working correctly, run a few sequences that you have made on them, fine tune your sequences to the actual lights now instead of the preview (there may be a slight delay in the real stuff that wasn't in the preview) after you have everything done, you then can set it up outside when it gets closer to your show start date (weather may play a big part of how soon stuff actually goes up), remember just because it worked in the basement doesn't mean it will work outside you may have to trouble shoot some stuff after set up outside (allow yourself plenty of time is what this is basically saying, well and plenty of zip ties too) After that sit back and watch people oooogle at your handiwork and bask in the glow of the twinkling lights.