LED System controlled with blob track through a Kinect in Isadora

Elena

The LeDMX4 offers enough to handle both of your strips without any additional hardware (although you will need a ethernet router, since the LeDMX4 must connect to a router, and your computer to the same router)

Thank you so much, this is very helpful. I have several questions though and I am sure it is cause of my low experience. So I am going to have only 1 LeDMX4 for both the LED strips, correct? Then why can't I just connect the King to the laptop through ethernet cable?

Let's start with this as I am still waiting for the components to arrive.

Thanks

Elena

DusX

@elena

You can, but it requires 'harder' network config.

To get started it will be much easier to use a router... once working you can then remove the router and reconfigure the networking to be static if you like.

Elena

@DusX

Ok great. Sorry to be pain but this is fine using only one LeDMX 4. Just because the production is spending money and I don't want to mess up. Thanks

Elena

@DusX

This would work right? 8Port Network Switch 10/100Mbps Gigabit LAN POE Ethernet HUB Desktop-Adapter

Juriaan

Hi there @Elena,

You want a router not a network switch, you need an DHCP broker in your configuration to make sure that every single device gets an unique IP. Network Switches only work for static networks.

DusX

@elena

As @Juriaan said.

Elena

@juriaan and @DusX

Thank you both for the patience. I know I am very annoying.

Would this work then? Router ASUS RT-N12 Wireless-N300

DusX

@elena

Yes. I beleive I have used the same model at one time also.

And your not annoying, this is a complicated thing to work out, especially the first time.

Have you found a power supply yet?

Elena

@DusX

Ok thank you for confirming the router. So... for the power supplier, I have a 500mA which based on the numbers you ran above, doesn't seem to be enough.

Now, I don't know if I should go for 12-24 V LED and so also for the correspondent variant of the King.

I am going to use only 4m per strip, cause that is how much my length is, but if you say I should just go for the 12-24V also to be able to keep it open also to future different applications...

So do I look for 200W/12V= 17 -> 20amp...? which is the highest amp for 12-24V?

Also I will need some cables extension cause I have to take both the strips, one at the top, one at the bottom, like in the first drawing up there... and connect them to the DMXking which will be somewhere around there... then I have to go to the router offstage and then to the laptop.

Also when you say power injection, does it mean I have to solder? Cause I don't have anything to do so...

Thanks again for all your help

DusX

@elena

I would recommend reading this page.. it appears to be a pretty good overview of power injection. http://spikerlights.com/pwrinj...

Yes, you may need to soldier.

20 amps is not the max. It is simply the max that the ledmx4-pro can output ( 5 amps per channel) BUT you can connect, for example a 60 amp power supply to the ledmx4-pro. Only 20 amps will flow thru the ledmx4-pro the other 40 amps are still available for power injection. This is what I have typically done. You can run the positive and negatives from the power supply to the ledmx4-pro and to the + - lines of the led strips every X number of leds (this is your power injection).

You can do this easily with 1 power supply since the ground is common.

This gets slightly more complicated if you want to use multiple power supplies.ļ

Elena

Thank you for the heads up. So, I read it and I feel it is really going beyond my competences and also I don't have the equipment to solder.

Is there a world where I can have the LED strips fairly bright for 4M length without having to do power injection?

@DusX Thank you for all your help on this. I really appreciate it.

Elena

Juriaan

Hi there Elena,

Not really, if you want to do White for example all 3 of the colors need to be full on (Causing some powerdrop down the line). The length that you describe is just too much..

What you can try is adding power injection at both sides. So on the input side of the strip and the other side. (Power doesn't know what direction is, so this is a valid option), that will give you double the power, perhaps this is enough. If it isn't, you can always play around with the brightness of the strip to see or that causes the problem to disspear.

If all of the above fails, you should get your solder station and make some easy soldering :)

bonemap

@elena said:

I don't have the equipment to solder

There are solderless connector options available: like this and this

best wishes

Russell

bonemap

@elena said:

Is there a world where I can have the LED strips fairly bright for 4M length

Hi,

This also depends on the pitch (frequency of LED along the strip).

The pitch of standard supply LED strips are 30, 60, or 144 per metre. I have used 5m strips on the LeDMX Pro that are 30 LED per meter without any noticeable drop-off. In terms of creating a quality of light that is continuous the LED's can be diffused with products like this

best wishes

Russell

DusX

another thing to consider is that the need for power injection is less if you are not turning all leds white at the same time.

For example if you wanted to move a Red block of leds (say 1m wide) the other 3m of leds would be off and you wouldn't need power injection.

As Juriaan said, connecting the power to both ends is probably the easiest way to extend the normal (single sided) setup.