maurobarreca
Member
Hi, I'm starting my first Teensy project and need some guidance. I need to send a 16x60 "video signal" from Processing to a set of WS2812b LED strips. Looking around I found the OctoWS2811 library, with seems ideal for the project. But what I'm controlling is not a traditional LED screen, but a series of (very spaced) short LED strips, so the wiring is my main concern here. The idea is to have 16 vertical structures with 1m (60 LEDs) WS2812b LED strip each (let's call them "sticks"). The sticks are part of a little scenography for a show, so I need them to work at an ideal 60fps.
So, my first idea was to work with two sets of 8 sticks each, wired as one long strip of 60x8 LEDs. Why? Because I found attractive the idea of a single chain of data between all the sticks, I thought it was the best way to maintain the signal quality based on the fact that the last LED of a stick regenerates the signal for the first one on the next stick. BUT, controlling long strips seems to be a problem for reaching high frame rates and on the other hand, two strips are a waste of process for the OctoWS2811 library (that works with multiples of 8).
So, mi second idea was to work with 8 groups of 2 sticks, optimizing the processing power of the OctoWS2811 library, but having a new problem: because of the nature of the installation, the wiring needs to go in and out of each stick (each stick has an in and an out RJ45 female connector), so for when the signal reaches the last strip of each of the two outputs of the OctoWS2811 adaptor, it had to go through 6 jump wires (one inside each stick before the last) and long cat6 wire lengths (up to 20feet), so I'm not quite sure of the signal quality here.
(The drawing doesn't show it at all, but imagine that the two main lines that come out of the adapter go in and out of each stick until the 7th. In "real life" wiring the signal for the 4th pair of each of the two CAT6 cables that go out of the adapter has to go in an RJ45 connection and out of another RJ45 connection 6 times)
A 3rd option could be making a sort of a HUB at the exit of the OctoWS2811 adapter and throwing a CAT6 line to each of the sticks, but I don't like the idea of filling the place with cables.
A 4th option could be changing to another library, maybe FastLED, and mantaining the wiring of the first option (two long strips of 480 LEDs each), but I don't think I can reach the speed I want with this method (this is slowly turning into my favorite option, could I control two WS2812b 480LED strips at 60fps with FastLED and Teensy 3.2?).
Sorry if it's hard to understand and thank you for any advice you can give me.
So, my first idea was to work with two sets of 8 sticks each, wired as one long strip of 60x8 LEDs. Why? Because I found attractive the idea of a single chain of data between all the sticks, I thought it was the best way to maintain the signal quality based on the fact that the last LED of a stick regenerates the signal for the first one on the next stick. BUT, controlling long strips seems to be a problem for reaching high frame rates and on the other hand, two strips are a waste of process for the OctoWS2811 library (that works with multiples of 8).
So, mi second idea was to work with 8 groups of 2 sticks, optimizing the processing power of the OctoWS2811 library, but having a new problem: because of the nature of the installation, the wiring needs to go in and out of each stick (each stick has an in and an out RJ45 female connector), so for when the signal reaches the last strip of each of the two outputs of the OctoWS2811 adaptor, it had to go through 6 jump wires (one inside each stick before the last) and long cat6 wire lengths (up to 20feet), so I'm not quite sure of the signal quality here.
(The drawing doesn't show it at all, but imagine that the two main lines that come out of the adapter go in and out of each stick until the 7th. In "real life" wiring the signal for the 4th pair of each of the two CAT6 cables that go out of the adapter has to go in an RJ45 connection and out of another RJ45 connection 6 times)
A 3rd option could be making a sort of a HUB at the exit of the OctoWS2811 adapter and throwing a CAT6 line to each of the sticks, but I don't like the idea of filling the place with cables.
A 4th option could be changing to another library, maybe FastLED, and mantaining the wiring of the first option (two long strips of 480 LEDs each), but I don't think I can reach the speed I want with this method (this is slowly turning into my favorite option, could I control two WS2812b 480LED strips at 60fps with FastLED and Teensy 3.2?).
Sorry if it's hard to understand and thank you for any advice you can give me.
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