Multiple BlinkyTapes Connected together
Looking at the blinkytape, it looks like I could hook up a second strip to the first by soldering them along the 3 connectors. Would this work and still be programmable by PatternPaint? I want to make slightly longer strips to attach to a set of metal fans to create LED Flow Fans.
Comments
Yes! It should work fine, as long as the extra strips are WS2812b or NeoPixel type. You can adjust the strip length in PatternPaint by going to Tools->Scene Configuration and putting the number of pixels in the 'Height' field. The controller supports up to 500 pixels, however for best results we recommend sticking to ~200.
Cool. I was actually just gonna connect a second blinkytape. I figure I just remove the controller from the second one.
hi, i'm new to this and have a question similar to what miloni asked. i have a blinkytape that i want to add a 4 meter neopixel strip to. it is 60 leds per meter. if i solder to blinky tape it would give me 300 leds, 100 more than you recommended. there are extra 2 wires for power on neopixel strip. can i connect a power supply there ? will it overload the blinky tape ? i calculated max power needed for 4m at 5v would be 72 watts, 14.4 amps. could i get away with a 10 amp power source, or less ? is this doable ?
thanks,
stuart
Hi Stuart- Just noticed your messages here.
The maximum length depends how you are planning to use it- will it be playing back patterns standalone, or do you want to stream them from a PC? The ~200 recommendation is mostly because the BlinkyTape memory is a little small- it won't fit many frames of pattern data if you intend to play data back from it. If you're going to hook it up to a computer or Raspberry Pi, then 300 should be ok.
Second, that power supply can be ok. We're doing a little trick with the BlinkyTape to keep the power low- the brightness is limited to about 1/3 of the maximum that the LEDs support, which allows them to be powered by USB (at full brightness white, they could draw almost 2A of current). This is usually fine for applications like wearables, where even 1/3 brightness is almost always too high. So for your strip, if you use 300 LEDs, that's around 6A of current at the default setting. You can override that in patternpaint through a setting in the preferences window, if the lights aren't bright enough at their default setting. A 10A supply should be more than sufficient, and you can connect power at the end of the BlinkyTape.
Cheers,
Matt