Hey, guys.
I’m wiring up a Saberbay Darksaber and I have a question. It has the RGBW Blade, RGBW single pixel for Crystal Chamber, an OLED, the Darksaber Blade Connector, a small RGB LED accent Strip, and the two button Switch PCB with two white pixels and the RGB pixels(I’ll most likely only use the White pixels).
I would normally run a separate POS, LED, and Data line for the Blade connector, CC pixel, and accent pixel. But because of the tight fit and the way the CC pixel pcb and Blade connector are both installed back to back in the blade connector holder, it would be much easier to share the POS and LED lines of those two.
I’m running a straight 20awg from Batt+ to the Blade Connector+ as well as a 20awg from Blade connector NEG to LED1&LED2. Since the Crystal Chamber PCB is only one white pixel, can I just run a 26awg wire from another POS pad of the blade connector to the CC PCB, and a 26awg wire from another NEG pad of the Blade connector to a NEG pad on the CC PCB? The Data lines I’ll keep separate.
Anyone install one of these and have a recommended diagram? I’m also interested if anyone has used both the white pixels along with the RGB pixels of the switch at the same time.
Thanks!
Sharing POS is always fine, as long as your wires are thick enough.
AWG 26 is total overkill for a single pixel. Even AWG 40 works for single pixels. (Wires smaller than AWG 36 tends to be difficult to work with though, AWG 30-32 is probably the sweet spot.)
Sharing NEG is almost always fine, just make sure you have SHARED_POWER_PINS in your config file.
Assuming your pixels have data in AND data out, you can hook things up in serial and use subblade() to still control everything, however, since data lines can use very thin wires, using two thin wires is also an option.
I’m a little confused by what you mean by “white pixel” though. Is this just a plain white LED? Plain LEDs can’t really share the NEG with a RGB/RGBW pixel, as it would turn on/off at kind of odd times if you did that. An AWG 30/32 wire to it’s own LED* pad is required to be able to control it.
On a side note; with smaller wires, the insulation tends to take up more space than the actual wire. The recommended solution is to use PTFE-coated wire, which tends to use much thinner insulation than other types.
Those 2 white LEDs next to the switch button are not pixels, those are regular LEDs (marked with “L”) connected together in parallel and with a 25 Ohm resistor. You need to drive them as a regular accent LED as per the User Manual.
Yes, I am going to use 28awg and/or 30awg for the accent LED strip, CC Pixel, Data lines, and the switch PCB. I am using PTFE wire.
I’ve never tapped off of the blade connector as I always try and keep it separate and direct, so I wasn’t sure.
So 28/30awg is fine to go from another + pad of the blade connector to feed the single CC Pixel as long as I feed the blade connector with a direct 20awg line from Batt+.
What about the NEG pad? 28/30awg ok for that if I have a straight 20awg from the blade connector to 2 LED pads at the proffie board?
Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, there is a single pixel rgbw PCB for the crystal chamber. It is this same adafruit 5050 rgb PCB you can get here;
It is just the RGBW version so sharing the LED pads should be fine since the blade is also RGBW.
The other white leds I mentioned was for the switch PCB. It’s a two button switch that has RGB pixels but ALSO has separate white LEDs. They would only need a + & - (no data) if I don’t use the RGB pixels.
Yes, thank you for correcting me. They are just white leds that would only require + & - if I don’t use the RGB pixels. I’m still deciding if I should wire it up to use both the RGB pixels and the white leds just in case. I’m assuming that can be done.
Having two wires connecting to the same thing is the same as having one wire with a splice, as long as that wire is thick enough to carry the combined current.
Yes.
For a single pixel, any thickness wire is ok.
AWG 30 can handle nearly 1A, which is enough for ~20 LEDs or so.
Adding one more pixel to the wire that feeds your blade will make no difference.
Yes - assuming that we’re still talking about a pixel, and not a LED.
(The AWG requirement for POS and NEG are always the same. The electrons have to travel both there and back after all.)
