HolidayCoro Candy Cane - Part 2
In this section we will cover wiring the candy canes up and all the obstacles and pitfalls we came across. What looks like a simple project (and it really is) can get weighed down really quick
Before we move on with the project let me stop for a minute and tell you about how we decided to connect these up. Originally it was going to be a Cat5 cable from my J1-Sys P2 controller located up on the porch, connecting to a power supply located by the candy canes and the power + signal would be injected into the first candy cane. There would be custom extension cords made from 4-pin waterproof connectors and 18ga 4 wire cable . I built all the extensions (will show later in this How-To) and hooked them all up. They where TERRIBLE!! By the time the power and signal got to the last cane, it was a different color (red was pink) and very dim. I enlisted the help of the good folks from Down Under (AusChrstmaslightlighting.com) and the "showed me the light!!"
Problem was not in the signal. Each pixel regens the signal as close as they are, I didnt need to inject a null pixel. The problem was power. By the time the power reached the end, the voltage drop was down to about 7 volts at the end of the string. So I did some testing,then some more and finally came up the solution of reinjecting a fresh 12V into the string between the 3rd and 4th candy cane, and the 7th and 8th candy cane and at the end of the string. This required building a special "Y" cable (shown later) for not interrupting the signal stream but injecting 12V back into the system. Below I will show what all I did.
Problem was not in the signal. Each pixel regens the signal as close as they are, I didnt need to inject a null pixel. The problem was power. By the time the power reached the end, the voltage drop was down to about 7 volts at the end of the string. So I did some testing,then some more and finally came up the solution of reinjecting a fresh 12V into the string between the 3rd and 4th candy cane, and the 7th and 8th candy cane and at the end of the string. This required building a special "Y" cable (shown later) for not interrupting the signal stream but injecting 12V back into the system. Below I will show what all I did.
Here is a perfect eample of the power usage. If you enlage the picture and look closely you will notice that the cane on the left is brighter and the color is darker. The last cane (and this is ONLY 4 of the 8) is already showing signs of getting lighter/dimmer.
I didnt expand on the "Y" harness becasue everyone will approach this issue differently. I will explain that I brought another output from the power supply with only 12V on the line. The "Y" harness simply ties and carries on the data signal and the power is just inserted. You do not want to reinject signal, just power (you will mess up the addressing and probably a few pixels along the way.)
I hope this give a good starting point for you if you decide to build your own. As I mentioned earlier these can be as simple or complex as you want to make them. You can buy red and white single color nodes, connect them to a LOR DC card and have canes, You can move on to RGB nodes and DMX controllers or go full bore with the pixels.. Your imagination (and your wallet) are the limit.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions on this project. We are more than happy to help if we can. We get so much help from others that it makes us happy to pass along what we learned.
I didnt expand on the "Y" harness becasue everyone will approach this issue differently. I will explain that I brought another output from the power supply with only 12V on the line. The "Y" harness simply ties and carries on the data signal and the power is just inserted. You do not want to reinject signal, just power (you will mess up the addressing and probably a few pixels along the way.)
I hope this give a good starting point for you if you decide to build your own. As I mentioned earlier these can be as simple or complex as you want to make them. You can buy red and white single color nodes, connect them to a LOR DC card and have canes, You can move on to RGB nodes and DMX controllers or go full bore with the pixels.. Your imagination (and your wallet) are the limit.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions on this project. We are more than happy to help if we can. We get so much help from others that it makes us happy to pass along what we learned.
Here is the last part of the project completed. I built the box for the power supply/injector. The idea behind this layout is that the controller box stays up on the porch, high and dry, and I only send the data signal out a CAT5 cable to the power supply located near the display item. Then the power is injected along with the data to power and control the display. Here are some pictures of the completed project.