Thin neck saber wiring PCBs in parallel vs other options

So in the beginning of my first Proffie attempt, I chose to build my thin neck saber using a removable chassis with 2 Shtokworks NPXL V3 shortpins running in parallel. I chose this setup partly because it was the easiest for my beginner level skills, and partly because I couldn’t really think of any advantage to doing it differently.

The Shtokworks PDF shows 4 possible wiring methods, parallel being the V2. There’s a brief blurb about what it means to use each method, but I’m having trouble understanding exactly what the practical application of the 4 different setups are.

Can anyone break it down into simple terms for me?

  1. data to blade only: everything works on the blade, but LEDs on PCB do not light up at all. (Not sure why anybody would do that.)
  2. parallel: With this wiring, the data is sent both to the pixels on the PCB and to the blade. Since the same data is sent to both. You don’t get to control the pixels on the PCB separately, and the pixels on the PCB must use the same byte order as the pixels in the blade, or things get weird. Blade ID should still work though.
  3. serial: Wired this way, blade ID will NOT work, because the blade will be “behind” the pixels on the PCB, so the board cannot see the blade. You have separate control over the PCB pixels and the blade pixels through subblade(), but it is currently not possible to mix RGB and RGBW pixels. It is possible to mix pixels with different byte orders, but it’s a bit messy.
  4. two wires: Doing it this way means that the board gets a direct connection to the blade. All blades work, you have independent controls of the pixels and blade ID works. If you have the space and the wires, use this one.
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Cool, thank you.

So how many “blades” does each version create.

For #define NUM_BLADES

I’m running V2, and a NUM_BLADES 1, so I know that works. I’m guessing v1 is the same

What about V3 and v4? 3 blades?

1, 1, 2, 2, respectively

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Thank you sir. Think I got it now.

In the V3 and V4 configuration, the emitter PCB, and the one at the top of the removable chassis are 1 blade, with the actual saber blade being another,and the 2 NPXL PCBs will always mirror each other.

Does that sound about right?

Well, if you have two NPXL pcbs, there are a lot more options, like 3 wires, but many of those requires more wires.

Oooh, ok, so in theory, you could run the chassis NPXL connector as 1 blade, the emitter NPXL as a second, and the actual blade as a 3rd?

Exactly.
Assuming you have a way to connect an extra wire between the emitter NPXL and the board…

The chasis NPXL should be easy to wire as a 2-wire setup though.

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Neat. Thanks a bunch.