Author Topic: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?  (Read 5563 times)

Offline keitha43

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Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« on: January 09, 2014, »
I heard the parts are supposed to connect parallel so if a node goes bad it wouldn't affect the rest of the string. It would be nice (if true) that something like that could eventually become compatible with RJ's Smartstring system.

Offline tbone321

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2014, »
I don't see how that would be possible.  The protocol strips off the first byte to control that node and passes on the rest.  A parallel path would prevent that from happening. 
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Offline keitha43

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2014, »
That is kind of what I thought. Here is what I had found on the web that made me ask about it-

"new WS2821 IC in the 5050 RGB LED,it shall have following features:

1.WS2821’s data signals are in parallel connection,any LED failures won’t affect any other LEDs,whole effect won’t be effected at all.

2.WS2821’s protocol supply the DMX512 standard protocol,so it is compatible with the standard
DMX512 control panels,so all WS2821 series products can be controlled by the DMX control panels directly.

3.WS2821 has address storage function inside, once writing address,shall be permanent preserved.
Following diagram is our recommend application:

For the package,we have two different package types for reference:

1.Package type A:

2.Package type B:

For type A:Here are two shortcomings:
 a).RGB chip is located in the side,not the center,so emitting color shall be at side as well.
 b).Since it is not a customize frame,so for heat dissipation and steady shall checked by the market as well.

For type B:We plan to develop this new led frame as well,thus will guarantee the RGB chip existing in the center,heat dissipation being better!"

Offline tbone321

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2014, »
Reading this, it sounds like a whole different animal.  It appears that these chips respond directly to the DMX protocol and that each chip gets and sets it's own starting address.  The downside is that you only have 512 channels available in DMX per universe to work with and once an address is set, moving the node to a different position would require resetting the nodes address.  If this is true, then the parallel data path makes sense and as they say, a failed node will not affect other nodes in the string.  Another bad thing is that they would not accept or work with PixelNet.  Can you supply a link to these nodes?
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline twooly

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2014, »
Sounds like DMX ColorCast Pixels at SeasonalEntertainment.
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Offline tbone321

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2014, »
This is why I would like the link so that I can look around at it myself.  From what he copied, it appears that each node is a little 3 channel DMX device and as a DMX device, it does not understand PixelNet or any other protocol for that matter other than DMX.  DMX, much like PixelNet, doesn't know or care about universes.  Either way, you can only send 1 packet (universe) on a wire pair so everything that is sent on the pair is part of the same universe.  In DMX, the packet contains up to 512 channels where a Pixelnet packet contains up to 4096.  Also like other DMX devices, once an addres is set, it is remembered so powering it down has no effect there and like a LE, moving it to a different location also has no effect, it remains on the start channel it was set too.  The strings that we currently use are neither PixelNet or DMX, our controllers make the conversion from PixelNet to the native protocol of the strings.
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline keitha43

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2014, »
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The part that got my attention was that one bad node won't affect the whole string. Most of the rest was Greek to me.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2014, by keitha43 »

Offline drlucas

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2014, »
I felt the wrath of a bad node or six this past year and while this solution would prevent what I call the white string of death I would rather see the innovation spent with improving the MTBF for the current product. I'll admit my 1 year old strings failed more then my new strings this year, however I'm very nervous about next season. I guess in the next month or so I'll start a serious burn in cycle on the existing nodes and try to fix up or figure out why node after node failed for me on two strings (I'm not joking when I say I had about 15 trips to the roof splicing cables with those two strings).

That said, if there is a promised land product I'll invest a bit of money in a hundred or so of these nodes and give them a test run. I'll check out the links.
-Ryan Lucas-
- Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Eh?! -

Offline jnealand

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2014, »
After watching all the issues with the technicolor strings this past season, I would stay away from all NEW offerings until the pioneers work out the bugs.  New products always sound good, but rarely meet the promise in version 1 of the product in my 70 plus years experience.
Jim Nealand
Kennesaw, GA

Offline tbone321

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2014, »
While they make the claim that they are going to be hooking up in parallel, the data sheet of the chip says very different.  The fifth bullet point says   l Cascading port transmission signal by single line.  This is how the nodes we are currently using work and if you were to hook them up in parallel, they would all use the first 24 bits of the packet and ignore the rest.  While it is true that one failure in this case would not affect the rest of the nodes, since they would all be doing the same thing anyway, who cares.  I will be curious to see how they implement this design.  Since there is nothing in the data sheet about this chip having the ability to store data, it appears to me that they may also be including a tiny micro controller that does the DMX conversions and stores the starting address.  If this is the case, then the micro controllers  would be in parallel and would feed the WS2821 the data for the assigned channel on its DI and the DO of the WS2821 would not be used.  While this may work, it would be a bit on the expensive side and having to address every node would be a real PITA. 
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline keitha43

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2014, »
Probably why RJ used smartstrings in his own show for a season before letting us know about them. Yet even then the prototypes were manufactured to a higher standard than the production strings as he didn't have problems with rain like I did. And I know Florida gets more than Oklahoma. I lost around 70 nodes through the season of the original ip66 nodes. Cutting and splicing almost every day.

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Offline ScooterDave

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Re: Any good rumors about the new WS2821 IC's?
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2014, »
Howdy guys, I've found the Data Sheet for the New WS2821 IC. Here is a copy of it at this link just click on it.

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I hope it may answer some questions some have been having about this New IC. If anyone can break it down to more like the DIYer lingo or just plain English, lol. Please have at it. Lol