Rigid Strip Question

[deplanche]

I noticed on the rigid strips, there are arrows on the boards pointing in one direction.  Which made me wonder, is there a begin and end side to these?  Do I have to hook up the begin side to the SSC in order to have the string work, or can either side be used?

[Steve Gase]

there is definitely an order to the smart pixels.  connect power and data wires at the beginning and the arrow points to the "end" of the string where it terminates.

power+data-lines  ==>  pixel1 ==> pixel2 ==> pixel3 ==> last-pixel

this is NOT true for the LEDs without a 'chip'.  If you don't see an arrow, and/or don't see a small black chip, then you can connect from EITHER side.  In those cases you will have 4 wires (+12v, R, G, B) and you can connect from either side.  (in a device where the string loops around to the beginning I've even connected BOTH ends of the wires to the power/controller source to deal with a minor power loss at the end of the string -- if you do this, remember that you must use the same power source)

[deplanche]

When I made the SSC's, I put the female end on them per the recommendation in the wiki.  But the arrows on the rigid strips point from the female end to the male end, which means I can't connect them in the right direction.  Can someone please update the manual to reflect this.

Also, are all the smart strings unidirectional?  I can't seem to find anything that says what end of them should be hooked up to the controllers, only which wires get connected.  But I might be missing it somewhere.

[wbuehler]

Look at the smart string node and one side of the node will have a chip on the PCB that will be the input side.

Bill

[deplanche]

Since I didn't see these arrows before I started putting things together, I cut off the female end from one of the rigid strips which I attached to the SSC.  My thinking was that this would always be my end strip, so it wouldn't need that attached.  But now that I realize it need to be fed from that side, I need that back.  I cut the wires flush with the rigid strip.  Any suggestions on how to disasseble the strip and reattach the female end?  I could pull out all the sealant and the strip, but really don't want to make more of a mess than it is worth.

[Steve Gase]

David Moore has a great series of videos on RGB lighting.  It mentions cutting strips, and also many of your other questions.

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[injury]

Also, are all the smart strings unidirectional?  I can't seem to find anything that says what end of them should be hooked up to the controllers, only which wires get connected.  But I might be missing it somewhere.

One of RJ's videos mentions they all have a direction and goes through some of them. I can only speak for what I have but String Nodes input is on the side with big chip. Plastic rectangles there's a marking for DI and DO (I assume means data in and data out), DI is the side that gets plugged in which is actually opposite where the big chip is on those.

[deplanche]

Still having some issues here.

On the attached photos the female connector on the smart string is connected to the "IN" side of the board and the male end is connected to the "OUT".  The arrows agree with this.  Am I correct that my SSC should have a male connector coming off of it in order to connect to the female side of the rigid strip?  This is different than the wiki shows, so I just want to be sure.

In the other two photos, you can see where I cut off an end of one rigid strip, as I mention in a previous post.  I put a digital volt meter on the wires and the labelled pads (which did puncture the sealant somewhat, but these are going to be used indoors, so should be ok), and I found that:

Red wire = +VC
Blue wire = IN
Green wire = GND

This also doesn't seem to agree with what is in the wiki for the blue or green wires.  Is there is a way to confirm which is correct before I hook things up?

Thanks.

Jon

[rm357]

I think you are correct.

My experience has been that swapping the data and ground wires for a short period of time does not seem to damage the nodes. Usually if the are swapped, the first node lights up blue...

RM