Came here after Googling "mount pixel matrix" as this will be the first year I'll add a "larger" matrix to the show (4 panels of 4'x8' @ 2") to place in front of the garage. I know your name from your wonderful controller products and work on FPP. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes look, I always pick up an idea here and there watching how others do things. Loved the battery box controller containers. I also liked the idea of the (coated?) hardware cloth for the "large" matrix (the main reason I came here). Your singing faces look great (so much better than commercially available). I quit using led strips when I lived in Southern California, the sun would damage them irreparably in a season or two (used them for gutter lights and verticals as well as in the arches). Thanks for all you do for the community 😀
Nice & Simple Setup, I purchased two of the K8-Pbs, with two display screens, just before Christmas, with one Beaglebone, used one of the K8s, 7 Ports to run the MegaTree, Matrix, Outlines, two mini Large Trees, and few small props, and it's working great, the only small issue, it's the Audio it's not that good quality, but I figured out that should use Sound Blaster card, which is can fix the issue, but over all it's a good controller. A question, can the second K8 that hasn't been used yet, be connected to the working one without a beaglebone, Thanks
@Daniel Kulp the master in your garage that run all your others BBB, it's always have to be alone (just the BBB), it cannot be an actual controller (K32A-B cap with a BBB), and not just be the Master but also using it as well to controlling pixels (Big Matrix in my garage door, 6 high density props, rooflines, etc.) and still able to remote the other controllers in the yard? Please advise
Nice display... I aspire to have a setup like yours at some point. Question though... your mega tree is a 360° and has 32 strands of 50. You stated just a few moments before showing the mega that the Boscoyo Large & Med trees don't get lights in the back because no on sees them. Why would you do a 360° mega instead of 180° or 270° and condense your 32 strands to make it more vibrant/detailed with closer pixels? Also, for your power to the power supplies and your boxes... do you have your load spread across multiple existing circuits in your house/outside, or did you install 1 or more new breakers in your main? I'd presume that you could run all the pixels from one 15A or 20A breaker, but don't know how many pixels you have. I'm debating adding a new breaker to my main and running through my attic to put some receptacles front, sides, and back, and also outside to permanent receptacles (use for power for display as well as year-round low voltage garden/yard lighting I've wanted to do).
The mini trees are solid ABS so you cannot see through them to see the back. Plus, due to the bushes and such on either side of the property, you cannot see them as you drive down the street toward the house. The mega tree, on the other hand can be seen 1/3 mile up the road (somewhat of a side view) and you can see "through" it. For many of the more musical numbers (anything from TSO for example) I really do like the look of the effects on the full 360 tree much better than on a 180/270.
For the power question... My garage has two 15amp circuits. One for the left side and one for the right. Thus, the stuff on the left side of the driveway is on one circuit and the stuff on the right side is on another. I don't know the total power draw for the stuff on the left. For the stuff on the right (tuneto, 12 canes, all the icicles, house outline, singing faces, one snowflak), I have it plugged into a watt meter thing. The MOST I've seen it hit is about 550 watts, but I run most things at around 35-45%, configured in the controller.
No. I purchased a metal bar bender thing from Harbor Freight ( www.harborfreight.com/bench-top-bar-and-rod-bender-38471.html ), wasted 3 or 4 bars while I learned how to use it, then pretty much did them free hand on it. They aren't all "exact", but close enough.
The Beagle in the garage is that what you run the show on? Does it run FPP in master mode then connect to the network and the rest of the controllers use the beagle in remote mode?
Correct. The garage beagle is the Master. All the others are running in remote mode. The master ONLY handles scheduling and outputs audio and the sync packets. It doesn't send out any channel data at all.
