Banana pi vs raspberry pi

Mahneuvers said:
What does this mean?
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Connector hasn't fallen off. Still able to conduct electricity. Decent fit in the breadboard and Pi connectors. You can check the various spots with a multimeter(you do have one of those, right) to make sure you're seeing the voltages at the pins of the IC, etc.
 
Advice to split the power out separately sounds like a good idea. If you do that, remember that the grounds carry just as much current as the power. It's normal in computer control stuff to have separate 5v logic supplies for different sections. Just be sure that all the grounds are tied together to reduce problems with different voltage levels.

This is a cool project. I only bring up the above because you mentioned you were a software guy rather than hardware....given all you've done with this, that isn't obvious, it's nice work
 
Mahneuvers said:
Thanks for the advice. I'll give that a shot.

The first issue I had w/ this project was the LEDs flashing seemingly random colors despite my control inputs. Turning off the audio kernel module fixed this. Interestingly, when I start the program now which sets all LED to red, I see the random colors for the first few seconds then, somehow, all turns well. I'm guessing this is significant but I do not know why.

I'm still thinking my 2nd LED strip is bad. I can get my 1st strip working consistently most every time. Unplugging it and plugging in my 2nd strip never works.
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Sorry, I missed this. The random colors sounds like a timing problem, possibly when the code starts there's other stuff going on on the pi and screwing up the timing. If it's a single core pi(Zero) then it may not be able to keep to the timing requirements until the OS finishes doing other stuff. Maybe start the code with a delay. If it's Python, load all the modules, initialize all the structures then just hang out for a couple seconds until pushing the first data.

On the second strip it's very unlikely that the strip is bad. Since they're in series if the first LED is bad then that could be a problem or if somehow the power/data/ground is broken before that first LED. If there are periodic contact points you could try hooking up after the first LED with power+data+ground. You are feeding the correct end, right? The data line only goes one way... sorry, I know that's obvious.
 
Mahneuvers said:
Another setback. When all is said and done, I'll have just under 160 airports illuminated. This requires a 2nd LED strand. This second strand, even though it's identical to the first, lights but does not respond to control inputs. I'm thinking it's bad. I've requested an exchange.

Edit: I was able to get the 1st strand to act up. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I'm thinking now it has to do w/ a faulty connection at the start of the LED strand.
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Did you try powering up the second strand by itself? I have been burned by bad strand before-after I had the whole thing drilled and duct taped down. So I have learned that each strand gets tested alone then in series before I tape them down.
You can even get a bad LED in the middle of the string.
You don’t have to run the lights at full power. I only run at about 12% of total power output so. Can run more leds
 
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most recent finished product. Built for a friend of mine first time using custom frame. Staples shorted the maps about 1/3inch so wouldn’t fit into standard frame and I didn’t notice until I had it all drilled and taped up. Used a deeper frame so ended up laying pretty nice.
Weather getting nice up here so going to spend a couple nights getting all the other ones buttoned up that have some small left over work then salting the map room away until early winter.
 
benyflyguy said:
Did you try powering up the second strand by itself? I have been burned by bad strand before-after I had the whole thing drilled and duct taped down...
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I'm using Gorilla heavy duty, transparent, double sided tape to secure the LEDs (so the light shines through the tape). I learned the hard way when removing the second run to re-drill the holes that you never want to remove the strand once it's taped down. So, I've been testing this 2nd strand all by itself while it's still on the spindle. That's why I'm pretty sure the strand is bad. I can unplug it, plug my first strand back in, and it works. My replacement strand is already in the neighborhood so I should know pretty quickly if the strand is truly bad.

I'm thinking my next hurdle will be the power supply. Mine is 4 amps. If each LED consumes 3.6 amps, that's not enough to light 160 LEDs.
 
Mahneuvers said:
I'm using Gorilla heavy duty, transparent, double sided tape to secure the LEDs (so the light shines through the tape). I learned the hard way when removing the second run to re-drill the holes that you never want to remove the strand once it's taped down. So, I've been testing this 2nd strand all by itself while it's still on the spindle. That's why I'm pretty sure the strand is bad. I can unplug it, plug my first strand back in, and it works. My replacement strand is already in the neighborhood so I should know pretty quickly if the strand is truly bad.

I'm thinking my next hurdle will be the power supply. Mine is 4 amps. If each LED consumes 3.6 amps, that's not enough to light 160 LEDs.
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What lights are you using??
I powered 100 lights no prob and according to my calc I can power easily over 200.
Assuming rating at 100% power on 5 V string
5V/#of LED’s/0.1V will equal the percentage of max power you can run. So to run 100 lights can only power each light at 50% total power. At 25% the lights close to each other are too bright IMO. I run at 12% and they are plenty bright. Could run easily 200 lights.
I haven’t tried this yet you do get a Bit of drop off of brightness at the end of a long string I’m told but I havent tried it yet. Would be easy to test that quick though. Maybe this week?
 
Mahneuvers said:
I'm thinking my next hurdle will be the power supply. Mine is 4 amps. If each LED consumes 3.6 amps, that's not enough to light 160 LEDs.
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If each LED consumed 3.6A, you'd have just built yourself a giant EZ-Bake oven. Maybe a string of them at full brightness might burn that much, but...
 
Sorry. Each LED consumes ~60mA. The 3.6A was for 60 LEDs. I'm looking to light ~160.

Bad news. It's not the LED strand as the 3rd strand behaves like the second. Very strange. I tried powering the strand directly from the power supply (bypassing the breadboard). No joy. Frustrating.
 
Will it work properly I’d you have the third strand hooked up as the first strand??
 
I got two strands working connected serially but I cannot explain why. I unplugged everything, reconfigured the power to run through the breadboard again, reconnected everything, and it just worked, first try. Maybe @chartbundle was right and I had a wire not doing wire-things :)
 
Mahneuvers said:
Sorry. Each LED consumes ~60mA. The 3.6A was for 60 LEDs. I'm looking to light ~160.

Bad news. It's not the LED strand as the 3rd strand behaves like the second. Very strange. I tried powering the strand directly from the power supply (bypassing the breadboard). No joy. Frustrating.
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The good news is that as I understand it, it's only 60mA at full white, so hopefully you're not going to be pushing them that hard.

Also, I found you a power supply: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/MEAN-WELL/SE-1500-5
I think 300 amps should be plenty, and it's only $325.

About the best you'll do for a 'desktop style' power supply will be 9amps, in reality 6 would probably be fine. Now, sure, there are higher rated ones out there but they tend to drop voltage significantly. If it I did right this should be a good search for 'reputable' ones: https://www.mouser.com/c/power/powe...tage-channel 1=5 V|~5 VDC&sort=output power|1
 
Thanks to everyone on this thread for allowing me and others to live vicariously.

I really enjoyed it and the maps are beautiful.

Mahneuvers, I’m curious as to what you would do differently next time.
 
BPM said:
...Mahneuvers, I’m curious as to what you would do differently next time.
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  1. I had Staples shrink the map and mount to foam board. Some Staples have the equipment to print right onto the foam board. Others, like the one I went to, print on paper and then laminate to the foam board. Drilling through the laminate made for inconsistent holes and/or holes w/ flakes of plastic obscuring portions of the hole. A laminate free approach would have been better.
  2. To prevent light bleeding through the foam board, I hot glued black poster board to the back side of the map. The poster board is already separating in some places. I should have used a better adhesive or have asked about black foam board.
  3. I'd probably use different lights next time -- ones that actually mount inside the drilled holes. My lights are actually mounted behind the map secured with double sided, transparent tape. There is significant brightness differences if I didn't get the LED emitter lined up just right with the drilled hole.
  4. Don't get yourself into the situation where you have to undo a portion of already secured LEDs. I changed hole drilling techniques and had to uninstall and re-drill.
  5. I'd stagger the airports more. You can see "runs" of lights on my map.
  6. Not all airports have downloadable METAR weather. I'd select airports next time from a list of airports where I know I can get the weather. In some cases, mostly out west, I had to use a weather observation that was pretty far away from the airport. It's not like I'm using this for flight planning so it doesn't really matter but it does tweak the OCD side of me :)
  7. I learned I don't like Python so much. I wanted to learn it as it's pretty popular w/ the younger programmer crowd, but, I'd probably use Java or C# next time.
  8. Don't be as ambitious as me on your 1st attempt. You'll learn a lot. Better to have a more modest 1st attempt.
 
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Mahneuvers said:
Thanks for the idea @benyflyguy Thanks for the suggestions @chartbundle and others. I'm almost done. All that remains is replacing the breadboard w/ a soldered equivalent. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but I would do a lot different should I ever take another run at it.

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Looks good. My first had probably 60 hours in it. Now down to about 4. The learning curve is quick! I have two USA maps boarded but have been lazy in moving forward with. The weather is getting nicer but with all this rain I might bang one out for fun.
I’m at by recently made for a buddy mine I probably spent two or three hours Solving a lights out script issue
 
I recently saw one out there that I guy integrated Flash app for cell phone/bt control of map settings. Pretty slick looking. Way beyond my current level but will start dating with the concepts
 
Can't answer any of the Pi questions but wanted to say your maps look great. I built one last year for my CFI/DPE using all of the information and programming from www.livesectional.com along with most of their parts list. Had a few addressing problems with the lights but finally got it working properly. This one is a full sized New Orleans sectional. I might do another one at some point but would like it to be smaller using smaller lights.IMG_8261.jpg
 
Raspberry is the best, a close second is blueberry, third is apple!!
 
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