LED Tape HELP!!!

[Chad Sweet]

I did a little searching but haven't yet found anything to help me out.

I just purchased some 5v RGBW LED tape, a DMX decoder, and some power supplies. I thought it would be easy to wire up. It is not. And I'm afraid I may have purchased an incorrect part or two.

So, the tape has 5 wires, like RGBW should have, but one is the V+ one is V- (which I wasn't expecting) and three wires (R, G, W) in the connector. When I cut the connector and stripped off the heat shrink wrap, it looks like the V+ and V- are doubled and all RGBW signals go through one wire. Can I wire this into my decoder? Or do I need something different?

 

[macsound]

Could you take a better photo of the LED tape itself? Like the little text and the SMD itself. That one photo is a little blurry

 

[cbrandt]

That looks an awful lot like pixel tape, not standard tape. If so, it probably is looking for +5 volts, and dmx positive, and shared ground.

 

[Mac Hosehead]

If you want to use the tape then you would normally need a pixel controller. Most of the "better" pixel controllers take DMX over ethernet as input. There are cheap controllers on Amazon, like this, but it looks like for most of them you have to figure out how they work by yourself.

 

[DrewE]

It is definitely pixel tape of some sort; the three pads are labeled "+5V", "Din" (and Dout at the other end), and "GND". It looks like two wires are soldered to the +5V pad and two to the GND pad, making the five total wires.

The data signaling would not be straight DMX512 or any variant of that, but a different serial protocol. Something like the WS2812 is typical, though those are RGB rather than RGBW units so it's not identical. At any rate, you'd need a compatible controller (or alternately need to develop some simple control software for a microcontroller or whatever).

 

[Chad Sweet]

Oofta... it IS pixel tape. I didn't realize there was a difference in the controllers for LED tape and pixel tape. Just ordered a DMXKing LeDMX4 Pro 5v. Thanks for the input you guys!

 

[dbaxter]

DMXKing again. Everything I've used of theirs has worked just great.

 

[Crisp image]

DMXKing again. Everything I've used of theirs has worked just great.

Can the DMXKing gear be controlled by x lights?
Regards
Geoff

 

[dbaxter]

Based solely on an inspection of their manuals, I would say yes. But I have used neither personally, so wiser folks may give better information.

 

[ChrisB_SanDiego]

Can the DMXKing gear be controlled by x lights?
Regards
Geoff

Not natively as far as I understand it. From what I have experience with you need an interim controller that acts as the converter. ex. XLights to Falcon F16v3 than sACN or ArtNET to DMXKing
There is quite the laundry list of software that works nice with DMXKing https://dmxking.com/control-software
For home play and small shows I personally enjoy Show Magic with DMXKing triggered via an Arturia MiniLab. It's a fun setup
I have never successfully gotten any DMXKing hardware to work with the big names, ETC, grandMA or Hog even with the output dongles or attached hardware. I've always gotten flicker with DMXKing sACN or Art-NET nodes.

If you want to use the tape then you would normally need a pixel controller. Most of the "better" pixel controllers take DMX over ethernet as input. There are cheap controllers on Amazon, like this, but it looks like for most of them you have to figure out how they work by yourself.

Very true on the figure it our yourself! Honestly I have found that a lot of the supposedly 'eDMX' devices don't actually take sACN even though they say they do, instead a lot of them use the KlingNET protocol. So I personally would recommend the phoenix connectors all day long.



As far as the original post goes. I would agree, you have pixel tape and you are trying to connect it to a non pixel controller. However, what hasn't been said yet here is that LED tape has MANY different protocols. You have to make sure when you are buying the tape and the driver / decoder, that they speak the same language. The most common protocol for LED tape is WS2811 and for Pixel tape is WS2812B. Both the tape and the decoder have to match for them to play nice.

A universal decoder that might work with your tape is however you still want to verify that the protocols are the same.

I'm not suggesting you start over but you will want to consider if you have enough control channels to drive pixel tape. 4 per pixel on that tape... or just set it up and see if the decoder has any macros you can access via dmx.

I have been working with LED tape for around 8 years. I've had the best luck with this setup patched as 8bit RGB fixtures with an ION.
Tape - Decoder - Power Supply -
Good luck.

 

[Robert F Jarvis]

I sued similar recently. The RGBW each get a NEG return with a POS common. I used a DMX 12 volt relay box to feed the 3 (or 4) NEGS to the strip based on the incoming DMX. I had a 12v power supply feeding the relay box

 

[jm_in_tx]

It is probably SK6812 RGBW tape, similar to WS2812 but with an extra byte for the white. If you are not the DIY type, then according to the website, a LeDMX4 PRO will handle it. Streaming ACN (E1.31) will handle the data transport and I am 100% certain that XLights will drive it wirelessly or over a network.

When we talk "protocol" for LED "pixels", they depend on timing and a continuous data stream: the first pixel in the chain grabs the first 3 bytes (4 for RGBW) and passes the rest of the stream until a reset interval happens. The second pixel grabs the first 3/4 bytes (formerly the 2nd 3/4 bytes) and passes the rese, and so on. In this way the pixels are "individually addressable" without actually having any address (or address decoding). There are many kinds of pixels that work like this, some with 3 wires (5V or 12V, gnd & data) and some with 4 wires (power, data and clock). The latter have much more flexible timing. The WS281/12 (3-wire) pixels have very strict timing requirements and there software libraries out there to handle both (if you DIY). I have built E1.31 pixel string drivers for a few dollars using an ESP8266 and use them with Falcon Player running on a Raspberry Pi. I can drive them using any software that handles E1.31. If anyone is interested, in more, just ask.