PixelPusher

What kind of issue are you having? Connection but no data?

Maybe see if it is related to this:

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4789&p=17424&hilit=artnet#p17424

Thanks a lot elburz!
It seems that with each additional strip I’m attaching to PixelPusher it thinks that it is a continuation of the previous one. Basically the pixels are under same universe or the new universe does not map correctly to the strip attached. When I open their examples in processing it works fine.

Hey,

I dont know much about the board specifically, since I dont have one, but I checked their forums and found these two posts that might help.

Are you on PixelPusher firmware 1.1? Are you using multiple art-net listening software on the same machine? This thread makes me think that you assign universes to your controllers and not your strips, I could be wrong though. Some info on this thread about art-net:
forum.heroicrobotics.com/thread/39

Also seems like there was an update to the PixelPusher Art-Net Bridge that happened earlier this week, download link is in the last post of this thread:
forum.heroicrobotics.com/thread/ … on-library

You should be able to tell the universe mappings by running the java art-net bridge (instructions in the link above, last post). Is the processing sketch shooting to specific universes for each strip, or to the universes assigned by PixelPusher device?

Yes, I’ve updated the board and am running the latest firmware. Yes you’re right, each board has its own specified universe read from a usb stick. The processing sketch is sending to the specific universe assigned to the board so in my case its all on the 1st universe. It might be the way I’m outputting data from Touch. Have you ever sent artnet through the dmx chop ?

I haven’t used ArtNet from the DMX CHOP.

Something you might want to try is opening the Processing sketch, and changing it to send it’s ArtNet data to an instance of touchDesigner that is listening on a DMX In CHOP, to see exactly what is being sent, then try pointing your DMX Out CHOP at the DMX In CHOP and see if what’s leaving TouchDesigner is the same as what you’re receiving from Processing.

VolvoxLabs - did you ever get this figured out? I just started playing with PixelPusher + Touch and it’s all working great with their ArtNet bridge jar, but I’m only controlling one strip which spans a universe and a half.

Leap Motion + LED
Ableton Live + LED

momo, I’m having exactly the same issue! I talked to the PP guys and couldn’t resolve the issue. Going to try to get back to this soon… another option is to syphon the output image from TD to processing and send from there as that worked nice

@Volvox: what issue? It’s all working on my end, I was just saying that I’ve only got one full strip to test with, is all.

I am a bit jealous of the ease with which the Processing app connects with and maps the strip, though. To get it working with ArtNet always takes a little more finagling with Network Settings. TD > Processing may indeed be the smarter way to go, but how would you do the hand-off? Does Processing support Wyphon (aka DirectX Shared Graphics Memory)?

Hey all, hopefully this is the right thread for this post…

I am working with TD and trying to get the pixel pusher working. It seems as if everything is connected properly as the java bridge is receiving artnet messages and the pixel pusher is recognized. I’m guessing that the problem is in the way I am formatting the DMX data before outputting it.

I attached my project file if anyone wants to take a look…any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks Adam
pixelPusherArtnet.4.toe (5.33 KB)

Hi Adam,

what’s the problem you are running into? Looked at your file it seems everything is setup correctly…
I have a pixelpusher on the way so will be trying to connect once it reaches my desk…

cheers
Markus

Hello,

I’m planning to set a system made of 5 pixel pusher with 4 strips (betterpixel 5m/360pixels) on each so a total of 20 strips. (7200 pixels about 43 universes)
I will go thru the artnet bridge
After reading this post, I’m a bit confuse if it is working or not .
Can someone confirm it is possible to drive more than one universe with the pixel pusher

many thanks

Anyone have a pixelpusher update?

It’s easy to forget about posting your solution back on the forum, would really appreciate if anyone ever got this working to share the info.

The documentation for the pixelpusher-artnet bridge is totally nonexistent and their forum is no good. I tried the TOE file on this thread and couldn’t get it to work with the artnet bridge, no contact in the art-net dat.

Thanks!

Hey Harvey,

I’ve pretty much given up on these controllers. I use to recommend them to people that plan to use them with LED Lab or Processing in non-critical projects but I have a really hard time trusting these devices to work.

These have a lot of issues and don’t support ArtNet natively which is unfortunate. Sucks to have to install Java JRE just to run a bridge application. Also, these don’t support the ArtNet Sync packet which is pretty important if you care about smooth playback or syncing with a camera shutter.

The ArtNet Bridge is difficult to get working and has a hard time dealing with multiple NICs or multiple IP address on the same NIC. It also matters a lot how you turn everything on. I think the ArtNet Bridge needs to see the PixelPusher when it starts up. This is the pattern that I’ve had the most success with:

PixelPusher → ArtNet Bridge → ArtNet output from TD.

Still, I’ve had pretty intermittent success with getting these to work. Sometimes it connects first try, other times it takes 3 or 4 reboots or maybe just doesn’t ever connect. Pretty frustrating to use.

The Advatek Pixlite is the same price and is a much more professional product:

advateklights.com/shop/pixl … oller.html

Advatek is a great company and the PixLite product line is easy to set up and has some nice safety features like fuses. At this point I think I’ve given away all the PixelPushers I had.

I can vouch for Advatek as well, I have used many times, it’s relatively easy to set up and I’ve never had a problem with it. Their customer support is responsive and they are nice people too.

I have the PixLite 16 MkII Control Board, and I’m very happy with it. This controller can be set up in different ways depending on your set up and type of LED, and on top allowing you to control LED strips, it has also 4x universe ports that you can use to send data to moving lights, dimmers etc…

The pixel pushers have TI line driver/buffers in them that makes it possible to run much longer cable runs before the LEDs. Careful simply subbing them out for the Advatek Pixlight. I know that the Long Range Receiver v2 (or 1.2 or whatever, the only ones they sell now) they added output buffers (possibly on my request :smiley: ). I don’t think the regular Pixlights have them yet.

ah thanks everyone. I decided to try the Pixlight and ill chime back in about how it goes.

I had cold feet when I started getting into the java stuff and only got it working using a processing syphon passthrough, not super ideal.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m thinking about going with Pixlite too and was wondering how do you guys build the power for these? Do i get Meanwell bricks (with correct values) or is there some recommended options? I was going to go with Enttec pixel series stuff but i’ve seen Touchdesigner people say good things about these and they are super budget friendly. Just not sure about the powering yet…

I have a couple of small installations with Fadecandy boards. Other one also with passthrough Syphon/Processing patch. I want to scale up a little. Thanks for the great info!

Regarding the power distribution to your LED installation, the topic is quite broad and personally I don’t feel in the position to provide specific advice since there are way too many variables to consider, for example:

LED voltage (24v, 12v, 5v…)

size of each LED pixel

number of pixels per metre

RGB or RGBW pixels

overall installation layout

distance between LED and power source/s

indoor vs outdoor installation

local/state regulations

all these parameters, among many others, will affect how you will have to power up your installation safely, and without voltage dropping (i.e. you don’t want to have the LEDs at the end of your installation to be one third of the brightness of the ones at the beginning).

Believe it or not, I found a lot of informations on sites like this one: doityourselfchristmas.com/w … _of_Pixels
I’m not into christmas lights, and even less into the whole christmas thing, but I found a lot of useful informations in this wiki documentation.
If you scroll down to the end of the page you will find more useful links.

My advice is to do a lot of research, don’t underestimate the power distribution of large LED installations, and put all the safety elements in place (like fuses etc…).
If still in doubt, consider talking to a professional electrician. You might have to do that anyway to get your installation approved, tagged and tested before installing it.

In other words, experimenting with 1x or 2x 5m RGB LED strips is quite straight forward and relatively safe, dealing with 10x or 20x or more 5m RGB LED strips is a completely different approach, both in terms of power and data distribution.

I don’t want to discourage you, I’m just giving you the heads up that it’s definitely doable, but you’ll have a fair bit of research and testing to do.

So after all, has anyone had any success connecting TD to PixelPusher or PixLite ? :smiley:

Never Mind LED Mapping via PixLite 16 MkII