Flex String "Frame"

[deplanche]

More Photos

[jnealand]

Yours look just like the ones that I received a month ago.  I called them the 2012 version in a previous post.  I have only cut mine in half in order to do up down on a short pixel tree and I saw no way to turn the strip and have the leds face outward.  I put 3 pin connectors on all the inputs and a 3 pin connector on the cut end output.  Works great.  I did find that just putting the 3 pin connectors on made the connection stiff so I put a piece of 3 wire cable between the connector and the input end of the cut spot.  This also makes all the inputs alike.

[mkozik1]

Yours look just like the ones that I received a month ago.  I called them the 2012 version in a previous post.  I have only cut mine in half in order to do up down on a short pixel tree and I saw no way to turn the strip and have the leds face outward.  I put 3 pin connectors on all the inputs and a 3 pin connector on the cut end output.  Works great.  I did find that just putting the 3 pin connectors on made the connection stiff so I put a piece of 3 wire cable between the connector and the input end of the cut spot.  This also makes all the inputs alike.

Did you get these from Ray Jim or somewhere else?

[jnealand]

Ray is the only place to get the smart string lights.  I just finished programming my SSCs and laid the lights out flat on a bed in a tree shape.  Looked real good.  My wife said if I put only one thing up this year it had to be the tree.  She loves it.  I have 8 flexstrips cut in half and then connected back together to make 8 strings but ending up with 16 strands counting the up and down.  Now to work on my tree mounting and getting my nutcracker effects into vixen to play with.  On RJs demo tree he had only 8 strands and I think having the density of 16 strands makes it look much better.  This will only be a half tree (180 deg).

[deplanche]

Having major problems getting things to work.

If I cut, or more accurately desolder at the soldered joints, then everything works if I either leave it cut or rejoin to the rest if the strip...even adding a wire spacer in between to make a 90 degree turn.

But if I cut between the pads at any other location, there are problems.  The first half connected to the SSC works fine,no matter what the length.   But if I try to reconnect the two portions, there are no lights beyond the cut.  I've tried it with different size and lengths if wire just to be sure I am not adding too much resistance, and none have worked.  I seem to have power if I check the pads farther down, but still no lights.

I also tried to cut the strips on a pad rather than between two, and then reconnect without a wire...much like it seems they were done on the factory joints.  when I do this I blow a fuse on the hub and get no lights anywhere.

Any ideas?

[MrChristmas2000]

Can you post pictures of your splices? That would help in debugging.

[mykroft]

if you look closely at a non soldered join there is a trace from the cut off part that runs back thru the joint to reconnect to the data output.  This is what has been changed in Ray's new ones.  There is a thread here somewhere with a pic on where to find it on the back and run a small wire back to the data input pad.  I will see if I can find it again....


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Myk

[MrChristmas2000]

Ugh,  what a messy situation. At least it's fixable.

[deplanche]

Hmmmm, with the number of these bends that I was planning on doing, I think I am going to have to rethink was I was going to do.  Seems fixable, but too much work and too much of a chance for errors.  Thanks for the info.

[MrChristmas2000]

I wonder if anybody has approached Ray about this design problem?

[rm357]

Sounds to me like they have been incrementally improving the design.
If you want something that can be cut between every node, you will have to be willing pay a lot more for it... 1 chip per node cost more than 1 chip per 4 nodes to manufacture.

[jnealand]

For the 3D star on top of my megatree I am going to replace the old rope lights with some dumb string nodes from Ray.  Way to many bends on something like that to even consider a flexstrip and would be way to much work.

[mykroft]

"the tm1809 strip can be cut now, please see the below link, we updated the PCB,and re-designed it".

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I would send a question before purchase to double verify he is going to send the "new" pcb version....

Myk