I have a hefty project to fix, The new years party was a success, I managed to turn data/clock line corruption into my advantage (programming the effects took minutes - as there wasn't much I could do thanks to bad signals, lol)
Anyhow, here's a pic to excite you:
and a video to finish you off:
So let me explain, there are two lines at the moment I need control over, with long distance and 14 MIC5891 shift registers.
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One line is a clock line, it is linear topology branching from the arduino mega 2560 pin 8.
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The other line is from pin 9, it is serial data into the MIC5891 data in pin, this IC has a serial out, which cascades to the next MIC5891 data input
The clock line is.... 15.9 feet long, every 15 inches or so, there is a MIC5891 tied to the line. some are 6 inches apart, others 30 inches apart.
The data line output to the next input is similar, 15 inches between or so, with variance.
Right now it appears the clock line is just crazy full of false cycles as you get further away from its origin at the arduino. The wire is 18guage solid core.
The power supply is also a crazy schematic, branching out in a star pattern from a central PSU, then stubbed connections to bus's for the mic5891 ICs
I was looking into using the maxim RS-485 or cheaper equivalent, but I know there must be other people here with arduinos and such that came across this issue. Searching the forum with my skills does not produce much help, only more about RS-485s, lol, makes me think I am gonna need a ton of these things, considering there are 14 mic5891 shift registers.
What have you guys seen that works in long chains of one wire data and clock lines?
Also, there are plenty more pics of this thing and hot chicks if you guys want them.
So far, $1000 +/- 50, over 1500 feet of wire (loads of antennas), 1474 LEDs (7 broken = 1467 working LEDs), and loads of man hours