Basics
Pixel-controlled LED can take every light project to a whole new level. Through this tour, you will learn the basics of pixel-controlled LED lighting. This technology allows for much more dynamic and expressive lighting applications than static or color-changing LED lighting.
Note: some parts of the tour use audio.
RGB or RGBW
RGB is short for Red, Green, Blue. RGB LEDs are the most common LEDs with which you can create a huge variety of colors such as orange, yellow, purple, or cyan. Combining all RGB colors together will generate white light.
If you want to have a more perfect white and also control the color temperature (cold or warm), a separate white LED can be added to the RGB LEDs. These types of LEDs are called RGBW.
Pros of RGBW
- There are various RGBW LEDs available such as cool, natural, or warm white. This makes them suitable for many applications.
- Because a dedicated white LED is available it is much easier to create true white light compared to RGB.
- Softer pastel colors can be generated which cannot be made with RGB products.
Cons of RGBW
- RGBW uses four control channels instead of three per LED. Therefore, more controls are required.
- Costs of RGBW systems are generally higher.
Warm White
Move the slider to see the differences in white color temperatures
LED segments
An LED segment contains one or multiple LEDs together with an IC. Having more LEDs per segment can be efficient because you need fewer control channels to control your setup.
Here are a few standard examples of various segment sizes:
1 segment
- 1 pixel = 1 LED
- 5 volts
- Voltage drop requires very frequent power re-injection
- Detailed effects and smoother effects because of higher resolution
3 segments
- 1 pixel = 3 LEDs
- 12 volts
- Less voltage drop than 5 volt
6 segments
- 1 pixel = 6 LEDs
- 24 volts
- Less voltage drop than 12 volts
- Suitable for larger-scale projects
The perfect dimming curve
To create smoother transitions on your LED product, you can use dimming.
There are two major dimming resolutions:
8 bit dimming
- 256 steps dimming
- Supported by most pixel control software
- More cost-effective
- Suitable for most projects
16 bit dimming
- 65536 steps dimming
- Not supported by most pixel control software.
- Requires twice as many control channels and therefore hardware. Every pixel uses two control channels instead of one.
- Smoother and more accurate dimming, especially at low light levels.
- Higher system costs.
The infrastructure of the LED products
If you know where to place your LED product, you have to check the ideal way of connecting it. Do you need long lengths or multiple short lengths?
Data types
There are two major types of IC/SPI protocols; Data only or Data/Clock.
Data only IC
- Uses one output port which means you can connect 4 runs of up to 500 LEDs on a DiGidot C4
- Uses two output ports which means you can connect 2 runs of up to 1000 LEDs on a DiGidot C4
Fast or slow effects
Do you need to display very fast-moving content? Faster content requires higher system performance.
Here are some tips to optimize the performance:
- To get high-performance output it’s best to spread your channel load equally among your output ports.
- We recommend connecting up to 510 RGB pixels per line for Data only IC’s
- We recommend connecting up to 1530 RGB pixels per line for Data/Clock IC’s
- Increase the FPS (Frames per second) of the pixel control software to 60fps.
Slow content
If no particular speed or frame rates are required then you can compare other features such as a backup line. A backup line will be used if an LED or IC is broken. This way not the whole part after the broken LED/IC turns off, but only the broken LED will be off.