Driving Tripix
Posted by JEC on September 1st, 2009
Co-developer has been working on the code needed for driving a string of TriPix. Now that we’ve got Art-Net receive code and TriPix transmit code, all that’s left is to merge the two together. Should have something stable by the end of the week.
The chip which handles the low-level ethernet routines is tiny. It’s the size of a regular 44-TQFP package, but there’s 80 pins instead. The pins sit on a fine, fine pitch – and I’m glad the robots at the assembly shop will be handling that part of the job. Wouldn’t want to try soldering it by hand.
On a side note, we currently use two shops for assembly. One is in Asia. They do fantastic work on high volume projects and the prices can’t be beat. Usually takes 20-30 days to turn an assembly project around. The other shop is here in town – about 15 minutes away. Though their assembly costs are typically higher, it’s great to have partners who work in the same time zone, speak the same language, and can work really, really quickly. They’ll regularly assembly our orders of 10-20 circuit boards – some fairly complex – in just 2 or 3 days.
It looks like the controller will be able to parse 2 consecutive universes of data (1024 channels), which roughly equates to 340 RGB nodes.
Demo video of a handful of Tripix being driven:
September 8th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Try the X-Port device from lantronix if you want a simple, easy to use ethernet interface.
I have buitl 2 different ArtNet bridges with them
September 8th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Sorry disregard that previous message, I see you want to run multiple universes. The Xport can only do 1 since it’s serial port is too slow. Don’t know why they did that
September 8th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Thanks for the suggestion. At this point, it looks like we’ll be using the Wizenet 5100 ethernet bridge chip.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
On a side note, who’s the artist for the song in this demo?
October 4th, 2009 at 8:38 am
The song in the ‘Tripix’ clip is ‘Joyful Joyful’, by PureNRG on “A PureNRG Christmas”
The song in the Asian node clip is “Jingle Bells”, by Kenneth Preston on “Cool Yule”