Pixel Reliability Issues/Expected Lifespan?

T

TheLightWrangler

New member
Hey there, long time lurker, first time poster.

This is my 2nd year doing my home light show and I am having the absolute worst luck with my Pixels. I kind of assumed that I would get at least 3 seasons out of them before having to replace strings (12mm bullets and squares).

One pixel will fail and screw up the whole string. I've been successful in just replacing the 1 bad LED but it's getting out of control this year. I've had at least 6-8 strings give out or just stay on randomly or just change colors. I'll replace the bad pixel, then it just fails a few pixels down the line.

Is this the norm? I live in Florida and we've been getting pelted with bad weather this year, lots of wind and rain, but again, kind of assumed these things were meant to be out in the elements.

To make matters more laughable, my first set of pixels I bought from Amazon because I didn't know any better, haven't had a single failure out of those and they're actually on year 3, yet pixels bought from what I thought were reputable vendors are dropping like flies on year 2.

Really just wanted to see what you guys opinions on lifespan are because this has me second guessing continuing to do my show after having to spend days re-doing my roofline due to these failures. I know failures are to be expected, but I consider this pretty excessive.
 
I am losing an average of 4 pixels a week out of 14000 in the show. This has been pretty consistent for the past few years. I do not count the order of crap I got from Ray Wu which have been completely flushed out of the show. I was replacing 10/day of those.
 
MartinMueller2003 said:
I am losing an average of 4 pixels a week out of 14000 in the show. This has been pretty consistent for the past few years. I do not count the order of crap I got from Ray Wu which have been completely flushed out of the show. I was replacing 10/day of those.
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Man that's discouraging. I have about 6000 in my show this year and another 5000 in the garage for next year.

I have been doing a lot of reading about quicker/more effcient methods of repairing strings in place. I ordered some of those "Click-It" things, hoping that reduces the burden.

Also, how are you guys verifying which pixel needs to be replaced? Sometimes it seems pretty obvious which one is bad, I'll cut out the last working one and the first not working one and 9 times out of 10 that takes care of it, but I have a few strings that just have failures all over them, guess I should probably just replace the whole string, but it's on my roofline which is much more difficult to replace an entire string. (Picture below)

Roof1 - 2 random blue pixels + half the back end just stays lit up even when shouldn't be lit.
Roof2 - Same as Roof 1, random set of pixels just stay on, but when the show is running, they work as intended.
Star - Same as Roof2, random pixels just stay on, but prop still animates normal when show is running.
 

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Do you have the controller sending "off" while a sequence is not being played? A pixel will show the last data it was sent. If there is any noise on your data line, you can see artifacts like these.
 
MartinMueller2003 said:
Do you have the controller sending "off" while a sequence is not being played? A pixel will show the last data it was sent. If there is any noise on your data line, you can see artifacts like these.
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I will have to verify. I would assume it's on by default because I don't recall selecting that option, of the 2 previous years I've had my show I've never had any lights stay on like this.
 
As most pixel failures (communications wise) are either the output chip of the last good one, or the input chip of the first bad, when we have time we cut the line between the two and attach a short string of pixels we carry that has alligator clips attached. If the test string light up then it was the first bad one. If they don't, then we know it was the last "good" pixel (not sending data). With as many pixels as we have replaced over the decade, this has saved quite a few.

To be honest, in the field with the weather turning cold, windy and sometimes wet, we have given in to the "last good and first bad" replacement method.

Once again, if we have time then we insert the test pixels.
 
I am having exactly the same problems with all the Paul Zhang pixels I bought last year. I have about 9000 in my display and have replaced over 100 bad pixels, so really 200 since I cut out last working and first dead one. I have not had one night where at least one prop did not have a problem. I fixed my fascia pixels by unplugging them since I was sick of climbing the ladder, weather in North Florida the last few weeks has not been good ladder weather. I am hoping the new evo pixels from Mattos might help next year.
 
DILA said:
I am having exactly the same problems with all the Paul Zhang pixels I bought last year. I have about 9000 in my display and have replaced over 100 bad pixels, so really 200 since I cut out last working and first dead one. I have not had one night where at least one prop did not have a problem. I fixed my fascia pixels by unplugging them since I was sick of climbing the ladder, weather in North Florida the last few weeks has not been good ladder weather. I am hoping the new evo pixels from Mattos might help next year.
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I'm in Jacksonville myself, I'm sure you got the same beating we did last weekend.

I do have to say, after a few dry/sunny days, almost all of my pixels have returned to normal, assuming some moisture/rain got in there and was causing noise on the data line, it has since evaporated and the majority of them are working again.

I did see the new YPS Duo pixels that came out not long ago, sad they're so expensive, but man it would be great if a pixel died and I could just ignore it lol.
 
I have not been so lucky. Last night I had a peace stick and a mega tree string with dead and stuck pixels. So far every problem has been 2022 pixels except one 2023 pixel on a candycane.
 
I've started using the 'pebble' pixels (bulk packaging) on some of my props this year (about 2,000 pixels total) and kept testing them while I added groups to each prop. I think I had about 15 or 20 pixels that were bad "out of the box" which were discovered during the initial installation testing. For repairs I've been using some of those nifty little heat-shrinks that have a solder ring inside and some sealer on each end to keep the weather out. Those are pretty nice but you need a good heatgun to effectively use them (without melting everything else around them).
I did end up replacing a couple more pixels after I put out the props but I guess, judging from what you guys have experienced, my pixel failures weren't too bad. After that thinks have settled out and worked pretty well, even during the rains we've had the last few days.


While troubleshooting the bad pixels I came up with a little trick to discover the bad pixel... I use a couple of straight-pins (with the little ball on the finger end) with a clip-lead jumper, and I just poke the pin into the input data line and the other pin into the output side of the pixel data line to bridge across the pixel. Most of the time I'm able to verify the pixel that has the output problem because the rest of the string after it starts functioning again. I've only had one problem where this method didn't work, where the last pixel just stayed on all the time and nothing after it would work. I think it might have had a short in the data output... I just replaced it and got the string working again. Anyway, the straight-pin / clip lead jumper trick kept me from replacing the wrong pixel almost every time. The pins made such small holes that the insulation would pretty much close up when it was removed, although a dot of super glue gel or something like that would be sure to seal the hole if need be.
 
I must be moving up.in the world. Last year, it was me getting slaughtered by the bad pixel nightmare. This year, it's my moving head. It's garbling the data and failing to pass it on down the chain. The secret elf gamemasters must rig it so as you level up, the problems get harder and more expensive.
 
1pet2_9 said:
I must be moving up.in the world. Last year, it was me getting slaughtered by the bad pixel nightmare. This year, it's my moving head. It's garbling the data and failing to pass it on down the chain. The secret elf gamemasters must rig it so as you level up, the problems get harder and more expensive.
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I think I'll stay with $30 of bad pixels, with the cost of some of the moving heads I can't imagine having to replace one. Hope you get the data problem fixed.
 
OptykMuse said:
I've started using the 'pebble' pixels (bulk packaging) on some of my props this year (about 2,000 pixels total) and kept testing them while I added groups to each prop. I think I had about 15 or 20 pixels that were bad "out of the box" which were discovered during the initial installation testing. For repairs I've been using some of those nifty little heat-shrinks that have a solder ring inside and some sealer on each end to keep the weather out. Those are pretty nice but you need a good heatgun to effectively use them (without melting everything else around them).
I did end up replacing a couple more pixels after I put out the props but I guess, judging from what you guys have experienced, my pixel failures weren't too bad. After that thinks have settled out and worked pretty well, even during the rains we've had the last few days.


While troubleshooting the bad pixels I came up with a little trick to discover the bad pixel... I use a couple of straight-pins (with the little ball on the finger end) with a clip-lead jumper, and I just poke the pin into the input data line and the other pin into the output side of the pixel data line to bridge across the pixel. Most of the time I'm able to verify the pixel that has the output problem because the rest of the string after it starts functioning again. I've only had one problem where this method didn't work, where the last pixel just stayed on all the time and nothing after it would work. I think it might have had a short in the data output... I just replaced it and got the string working again. Anyway, the straight-pin / clip lead jumper trick kept me from replacing the wrong pixel almost every time. The pins made such small holes that the insulation would pretty much close up when it was removed, although a dot of super glue gel or something like that would be sure to seal the hole if need be.
Click to expand...
@OptykMuse could you show a picture of this pin thing, I can't make sense of it, but I'm curious.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
Sorry for the delay... you know how busy this time of the holiday gets :)

Here's a pic of one of the bad pixels I was troubleshooting using the straight-pin data bypass method. In this case (as in mos I came across) I bridged across the last pixel to light and function in the string so I knew data was at least getting to that one. If the bridge caused the rest of the string to begin functioning properly I knew the bridged pixel had no data output and needed to be replaced.20231019_131210.jpg
You can see the pins piercing the center conductor (data line) on each side of the pebble pixel, so the data could continue on past it with the clip lead in place. You do need to be VERY careful you don't short to either the power or ground wires while poking it through the data wire insulation. I needed magnification to do this with my old eyes. :)
 
I've had a few go bad from a batch I bought last year from one of the Big name China suppliers. Having done autopsy's on a few,
I have found the cap. on the Data out fall off when removing the resin. (I assume that is what it is, but it's a cap anyway) I have replaced 10
or so so far for the season. One string on the end of a prop had daily problems to the point I just replaced the whole string.

I made something similar but it is a straight pin soldered on either end of a 6 inch piece of wire. I can pierce the data wire on either
side of a suspected bad boy to check things. I read about it on the forums one day and thought it was a good test tool for my tool kit.
 
Well after using almost all of my 3 100ct backup strings for repairs I finally had a show complete last night without any problems. Sometimes I really miss my old AC show running on Renard and Lynx controllers, simpler times.
 
DILA said:
Well after using almost all of my 3 100ct backup strings for repairs I finally had a show complete last night without any problems. Sometimes I really miss my old AC show running on Renard and Lynx controllers, simpler times.
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Don't give up on Renard and AC. It's making a comeback since pixel displays all look so similar and AC is so much more mature. I'm going on my 13th season with AC LED strings I bought from CDI back in 2010... and lots of wireless Renard...
 
1pet2_9 said:
I must be moving up.in the world. Last year, it was me getting slaughtered by the bad pixel nightmare. This year, it's my moving head. It's garbling the data and failing to pass it on down the chain. The secret elf gamemasters must rig it so as you level up, the problems get harder and more expensive.
Click to expand...

On simpler DMX devices, the DMX IN and OUT are basically wired to each other electrically so there should be nothing to go wrong further down the chain. Wondering if this is simply a connection issue (e.g. the + or - core isn't connected). Could be something else if the electronics is more complex though.
 
I also heva a crap order or two from somwehere on AliExpress - lots of failures in these vs the initial pixels I purchased which are still going strong. I'm going to bin these off and replace with new pixels, it's not worth the hassle to keep fixing them.

The ones (50 x 5V pixels) I have got recently from Bluebell Lighting Store (AliExpress) arrive quickly and seem OK so far. Note they are a smidge large than 'normal' pixel sizes. Don't hold me to this until they have done a few seasons though!
 
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