At one point in my project the path of the light splits in two and then splits further, although in every case each "tributary" should run basically in parallel. This would be a basic diagram of what I have in mind:
In theory, I'm thinking it should work. Ie pixel 6 is still pixel 6, only now there's a pixel 6 on 3 different strips. What I'm thinking is that once the chip on pixel 5 is done with the data, and the data (minus 1-5) passes on to 6 and on, it's just sent to 6 on each separate strip.
However, as I'm pretty sure that I've read the data packets are sent in 3s, I'm not sure if the fact that, say, the shorts "tributary" only has up to pixel 8 will result in new data for pixel 1 being sent right after that instead of this happening only once all the data from 1-11 has cycled through.
Basically, what I'm wondering is if the diagram above is viable or if it will result in issues?
P.S. The reason I would like to resolve these needs like this is to avoid having to run longer wires from the end of the strip back to the "tributary" segments, as well as having to come up with a more complicated code that, say, treats the 35th pixel and on as if they were located between the 5th and 6th and ran in parallel. I don't know if this makes sense...
Each pixel has no "idea" of what is following, the "excess" data just flows through whether there is anything to receive it or not! It's a brilliant design.
Each pixel has no "idea" of what is following, the "excess" data just flows through whether there is anything to receive it or not! It's a brilliant design.
Yay! That's great news! More often than not the way I think electrical stuff must work and the way it really works is the opposite. And when something seems too simple it's often because I'm not considering a key element and my design is destined to fail!
Thanks for the reply, Paul. And thanks for the very generous adjective: brilliant... I don't know if it's that (seems more common sense than anything) but I'll take it!
Remember, there is voltage drop on the strip power conductors, for LEDs all the same colour, a LED at the end of the strip will appear different than the 1st LED.
In which case powering the strip at different points might be necessary.
Yes, if you are going to parallel the data at a given point you should take the opportunity to feed power (which always means 5 V and ground) in to that point as well as at the start (and end) of the strips. For ten LEDs in a row (550 mA) it is not too critical, but you should consider feeding power in at least to each end of every 60 or so LEDs.
Thanks for those recommendations. I am considering the possibility of having to add leads that go all the way to the end. But, all in all, I'm only using 36 LEDs, they're ECO, they'll never be on full white (if perhaps a pixel gets close to full white, it's only 1 or 2 in the entire strip, and for only a moment) and I'm not looking for full intensity light. So I think I should be OK. I'll connect them directly to the 5V source, bypassing the Arduino, just to make sure the current isn't affected by the Arduino (although I'm not sure if the 5V and GND pins are just directly connected to the power input).
It's a brilliant design.