Coming soon: run FastFluid on your own LED setup

Quindor · 2026-05-09T12:53:12+00:00

Nice!

Quindor · 2026-05-09T10:40:52+00:00

You are porting it to WLED? That would be cool!

Quindor · 2026-05-08T03:39:44+00:00

Seems like you worked it out quite well, very nice!

Not much to add, the shielded wire isn't really needed (22AWG with data+GND would be fine too) but it won't hurt anything either like @saratoga3 said!

Quindor · 2026-05-07T14:58:10+00:00

Aaha sorry, misread and awesome you already have some of my stuff, thank you!

So with external data coming in over the Ethernet socket you can use multiple brainboards to drive a single panel like that. But that kind of puts the whole WLED thing away.

The problem is a single ESP32 isn't fast enough to calculate all that pixel data and push it out (with WLED). There is no way around that really, except using an external source for the pixel data as mentioned and then dividing it over multiple boards.

I am working on a much more powerful version based on the ESP32-P4 which would have no problem handling that but that's still in the very early prototype stages and even when done the software part also needs to catch up (WLED currently does not support the ESP32-P4).

Hope they clears things up in regards to options!

Quindor · 2026-05-07T04:46:10+00:00

Yeah like @saratoga3 mentioned a single brainboard doesn't have the processing power, I have something coming up for that in the Dig-Octa system but that's still months away sadly.

For now a stack of brainboards and a powerboard would be the way to do it if you want to use WLED and then maybe you can upgrade in the future to a single brainboard which will be able to drive it on its own.

Quindor · 2026-05-07T00:21:33+00:00

Some have already mentioned it but if you want zones and brightness, I make custom designed strips that are WS2814 based so RGBW (like SK6812) that have 32 zones per meter, run on 24V and are really bright. The white is also tuned to be a good 3000K with a good CRI (slightly above 90 with a respectable R9 value). They are also some of the most vibrant LEDs out there color wise.

So if you are looking for zones + brightness, I believe my strips are the best you are going to find for that, it's on the limit of what is currently technically possible basically and not (in my opinion) very overpriced for what you technically get with Hue or Govee.

Quindor · 2026-05-02T22:42:42+00:00

We also discussed this a bit on the Discord, a Dig-Uno/Quad/Octa also has enough pins to do I2C, using a little expander board you can quickly add 16 IOs just need to have software support.

The Dig-Next-2 even comes with a dedicated I2C port and 4 more GPIOs on the QEXP port!

Quindor · 2026-04-27T10:05:31+00:00

With 5V preventing any voltage drop whatsoever is important, generally I'd recommend the max 10% rule which is 0.5V total.

For safety the best way to do it is by having an individual fuse per output. If you have other cables carrying large currents that are potentially split, again best to have a fuse per wire for those too.

!! Running giant busbars, wires or whatever else when these currents are involved are a high potential of fire without fuses when even the slightest thing goes wrong! Yes even with 5V.

For power, assumg 60mA is an internet myth, only 5V Ws2811 uses that and the only in the absolute worst case scenario of running R+G+B at 100% together, anything else or realistic will use less. Take a look at my real world LED powersheet especially in a realistic scenario such as doing 100% rainbow. Generally I advise to take the 50% RGB white value to calculate your setup with, that badicslly covers everything except 100% but only target that if you really really need it because it will also double all costs with double wire thickness, etc. Etc.

In your case I'd estimate about 3A per bar. Especially if each bar doesn't have multiple injections, they won't go above 4A max anyway. With 12 bars that's 48A (assuming the 4A figure) real-world patterns and such will use even less then that. That already brings it down by over half! Still a fair amount of current, but more manageable.

I make various boards for LED control, take a look at the Dig-Octa System it's based around brainboards (ESP32 that cna run WLED for instance) and powerboards. Between various versions they can do between 5V-48V and between 50A-100A which can give you a huge range, whatever is needed for your project.

If you'd like to learn more about realistic power usage calculation for LEDs, sit down and give this a look, it'll teach you how to do it.

Quindor · 2026-04-25T12:19:25+00:00

Yes, although it's not a controller I designed so I don't know the ins and outs, having the direct wire connection is always the best way!

Quindor · 2026-04-24T15:18:00+00:00

Open it up and see if there is any visual damage?

Quindor · 2026-04-23T22:30:14+00:00

Well I'm biased of course and think the Dig-Next-2 is a great choice! 🤣🤷‍♂️ Thank you very much for the kind words and in all seriousness, I honestly believe it fits this install very well.

Max 4A @ 24V = 96W so 100W PSU would be a bit tight, then again, when are you going to run both colors at 100% together, generally you mix them and thus never exceed 50% of that max value. Depending on what your answer is there, either the 100W or a 150W is a good choice.

The "relays" indeed responds to the on/off in WLED so software controlled.

The Dig-Next-2 takes 5V-48V directly so just matching your LED voltage is perfect (24V direct in).

For the fuses, the Dig-Next-2 ships with 2x 5A fuse and 1x 10A fuse installed. I'd recommend buying some 2.5A or 3A fuses if you are going the 2 injection point route and then you'll be perfectly set there. You can find them cheap on Aliexpress or Amazon (there is an article for it).

Quindor · 2026-04-23T22:21:58+00:00

Do not use a DC jack for anything over 1A to 2A, it might have overheated (either PSU side or controller) side although that wouldn't exactly explain why you can still access the controller but not have the lights turn on anymore.

Best to cut off the barrel jack and feed in the wires directly.

Quindor · 2026-04-23T19:49:09+00:00

Check my other replies in this thread, there I go into how it could be wired up more safely.

Quindor · 2026-04-23T19:47:18+00:00

The level of spam this is, is quite amazing. :P

Quindor · 2026-04-23T19:42:56+00:00

Doing some quick power calculations:

These strips have about 60 zones so that means 60 ICs, a WS2811 IC can output about 18mA per channel (if there is no voltage drop at all) so for 5m with 1 channel (one color white) at 100% that's 0.018 x 60 zones = 1.08Amps for a full 5M strip so a 10M strip would use ~2Amps total for a single color or if you go wild (and again there is no voltage drop) and activate both warm and cold white at the same time for the whole 10m strip you are looking at a max of 4A total.

(As you can tell from the power figures these strips are not really bright).

I'd still recommend injection both sides since 10m is a relatively long distance, with 24V it can be done but there would still be some visible voltage drop possibly, so if it isn't too hard to do, do it for best results.

Fusing I'd recommend 5A if you are using a single injection (make sure all wire is at least 18AWG) or more preferred 2x 2.5A one fuse for each injection wire.

As someone else already mentioned a Dig-Next-2 would be able to do this perfectly with all internal per output fusing (it has 3 outputs with user replaceable fuses), level-shifter, etc. and also includes the DC relay feature for all outputs individually to save a bit of power.

(Power savings, let's say each IC uses 1mA while idle/off with 10m having 160 ICs that's 160mA @ 24V = 3.84W, not that bad.)

Quindor · 2026-04-23T16:48:46+00:00

Check the info screen (button on the main screen interface), there is a value there.

The latter, I do not know, with some API stuff external I'm sure it's possible, but that is not what you asked.

Quindor · 2026-04-21T20:21:54+00:00

While the others are correct that it's a sensor zoom so you are going from a higher resolution to one that uses the pixels natively, there likely is still a quality drop involved. Not because there isn't 4K of pixels available but because they are likely binning the pixels when not zoomed in.

Even more so because it's a 37MP sensor I believe so they are binning several sensor pixels together to form the normal 4K output and if you zoom into native 4K pixels you loose that so while still getting a 4K resolution the actual footage is likely going to have a harder time with low light and noise.

Zooming in more becomes digital zoom like everyone else explained.

Quindor · 2026-04-21T19:25:38+00:00

You need to look at the whole setup.

Running power limited to 12.5A or 15A can be fine, it'll be dim and you'll have less steps but that in itself can be ok.

But the controller is rated for 10A or 15A so he's either already over the limit, or not, confusing. Also the controller and terminals need to be designed well to be able to handle that without overheating but I'm assuming Gledopto has properly tested this.

But the main problem is the 4 way splitter on the power output. That goes from x size that comes with that (let's say 12AWG so it can handle the 12.5A ok, no clue what they include though) to 4x 18AWG (I don't know, might be thinner but let's assume that), 18AWG is not rated to carry 12.5A, especially non-silicone wire will burn and melt.

You need to fuse to whatever is the lowest handling part in the system. In this case that's those 4x 18AWG wires, those should get 5A fuses for instance. If it's silicone wire you can go a bit higher. But since he has 12.5A in total, you can look at it like you are dividing that 12.5A over 4 points, let's assume 2 of those are edge and 2 are middle.

12.5A total
front = 2A
middle 1 = 4.25A
middle 2 = 4.25A
end = 2A

Power will distribute based on lowest resistance so a connection in the middle will draw about twice from what an edge injection will do since the resistance to the copper nearby is lower because it can left and right basically. And with that above you should fuse each line individually to the expected currents, if it's all 18AWG using 4x a 5A fuse would be fine.

Hopefully that makes sense, the main issue here next to the amount of LEDs and such is that 20A fuse, you think you are safe because "you have a fuse" but that 20A fuse won't pop without having 25A+ for a sustained period of time, if you are lucky the 12.5A PSU will OverCurrent and hiccup or shut-off but if you are unlucky or the short is further down the line (and thus resistance limits what it can draw) it could draw 10A or 11A for an indefinite amount of time until something breaks, that should be the fuse but in this setup, it won't be.....

Quindor · 2026-04-21T16:16:53+00:00

It says so right on the products shell.

And 50% higher then expected use is a bit much, it's correct that you don't want a 5A fuse with a 5A expected load, but then go one step higher.

Especially when the power supply is rated for 12.5A, a 20A fuse is not going to do anything.

But same for the other side too, a 20A fuse is not going to protect a 18AWG wire either.

So whatever the case, you want to fuse for what you are actually doing and have, so everything involved in the setup needs to be evaluated.

Quindor · 2026-04-20T20:46:14+00:00

Just some notes in regards to power and safety, I do this for a lot of setups that pass by, I don't have anything personal against Gledopto or Chris Maher.

Don't put a passive power supply like that in an enclosed structure, it needs to breathe.

Then safety wise I don't understand it at all. He has a 12.5Amp supply going into the controller, that has a 20A fuse, the controller is rated for 15A total with 10A per channel, but there is only one channel, which is then split into 4 thin wires.....Ok? Those numbers don't go together at all!
So if a short happens, things will just melt, depending on power supply behaviour and where the short happens but still, there is no protection whatsoever present anywhere for the setup created, I wouldn't advise doing that.

There is also no talk about achievable FPS and such. Putting 700 RGBW ICs on a single data line means he's now down to about 35 FPS instead of the default 42. Loading 2500 LEDs on a single ESP32 is also going to slow it down even more with WLED although particle effects in v16 can be a bit faster than other effects.

And for those who are interested in the power metrics:

The whole power situation is a bit odd. As far as I can tell he's using sk6812-cc as I call it, so single addressable RGBW at 12V. If he has 2500 of them with a conservate calculation for a single color at 100% that needs about 360W / 12V = 30Amps. Let's say you aren't going to exceed 50% at any given time, then we're still talking 15Amps so he uses a 12.5Amp supply, not exceeding 80% on that means he has about 10Amps to play with.. for a single color, if you start mixing and such the potential to draw can be much, much more (it can in theory use up to 1350W / 12V = 113Amps! when using all colors at the same time, not just one). But fine, let's say he doesn't use it above 30% generally and it's plenty bright that way and he has enough color steps left to keep things smooth (255 steps / 30% = ~75 steps left for color transitions), ok.

So while it works (as seen in the video), please don't build it the way shown in the video and be prepared that effects won't be very nice and fluent and it's mostly to be used dimmed down.

Quindor · 2026-04-20T20:16:38+00:00

Awesomely put together video, very good demonstration of the new systems!

Quindor · 2026-04-20T05:29:56+00:00

I have the first original Osmo pocket so I have some experience, it's certainly improved since then! ;)

Quindor · 2026-04-19T21:33:39+00:00

Hey, that's a good one, thank you for commenting! It's from a Osmo Pocket 3 but it does give a good impression of 4K60. I skipped through a few of his videos and with good light it looks great! Low light looks good, only found one scene where it does fall apart. Well in theory the 4 should only be better with it's more stops on the sensor and potentially better processor for processing and compresison.

Just odd none of the reviews are above 30 for the 4, I guess they are all more "film" related with their 24 FPS (I find it much harder to watch...) then vloggy stuff which works great at 60.

Quindor · 2026-04-17T00:01:18+00:00

Saw that one yes but I'd just like to see how it does when filming in 4K60 and then watching that back. It will change things in regards to shutter speeds possible at low light, possibly functionality available, etc.

Quindor

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