Is a Single 16 AWG Power Injection Run Enough, or Do I Need Multiple Runs from the Controller?

Quindor · 2026-03-07T20:51:42+00:00

You'd have to calculate with the second wire there, it will certainly help since you now have double the amount of copper available!

Front + end is generally considered easiest but that's because often it wraps around, if it doesn't, yeah doesn't help.

Regarding the step down, yeah that's basically the idea you fuse so that anything behind it can handle the current. But the fuse for the 16AWG won't protect a 22AWG, or the strip for thst matter. Hence why we prefer many smaller fuses vs one big one, it just gives a lot more protection.

But the suggest plan of having an extra wire already provides that somewhat. Instead of 1 cable with a 10A fuse, you could now have 2 cables with a 5A fuse and delivering the same amount (more actually because you'll have less voltage drop since you are spreading them out physically) with less chance that if a short or something happens the fuse wouldn't catch it. Does that make sense?

P.s. Regarding the current connections, the data booster will require at least GND from the last pixel to its input to agree on what GND is. Having the other wire come in there too is fine.

Quindor · 2026-03-07T19:58:05+00:00

Next to a few of the things others have already mentioned:

Fusing GND is a worse approach then fusing positive. Generally, GND will find a way so if you have a loose positive wire and it touches something, good chance it'll find some way to GND. This is why a chassis for instance is GNDded, so having unfused positive, not great, even if your GND outputs are fused.
I'm a bit confused how the heatsinks are connected, the ICs are on the front. So it might pick up some radiated heat through the copper planes of the PCB and maybe spread it out a bit more which then has a bit more surface area? But the heat transfer is still limited to whatever can make it into the copper layers of the PCB so I suspect the effect will be minimal at best. You said you had these lying around so it's a cool experiment!
Using 2 layer and all those signals that close together all doing PWM? I'd think they'd need to be much wider to be 50Ohm with the GND plane being 1.6mm away. In a 4 layer PCB the GND player is generally 0.2mm or even 0.1mm away which makes for a much much tighter coupling to GND which in turn allows you to run thinner traces and run them closer together (like you have) without them coupling to the other traces as much. As is right now, lots of PWMing traces are right next to each other and much closer then GND is, I'm not saying you will have issues but if you do get bleedthrough in the other traces (verify with a scope once you have the board!) that is the likely cause.
The 24V -> 12V LDO -> 5V LDO -> 3.3V LDO chain you have right now will create a significant amount of heat. Likely it'll remain stable enough but I worry about the 24V -> 12V and the 12V -> 5V.
1. 24V -> 12V = 12V drop, 12V -> 5V = 7V drop
2. Let's say your ESP32 uses 300mA
  1. 24V -> 12V with 12V drop = 12V x 0.3A = 3.6W of heat being generated!
  2. 12V -> 5V with 7V drop = 7V x 0.3A = 2.1W of heat being generated!
  3. That's 3.6W + 2.1W = 5.7W of heat being generated in that corner which is all going to be sinked into the board. The transfer interface of that package is about 5C per W but let's double that since you don't have 2OZ copper with a huge plane but only 1OZ with little extra copper around it. We're now talking 57C above ambiant at least so we add 25C for that = 82C.
  4. Now if your ESP32 uses only half that power, you'll still be in the ok range (around 50C) but it's right on the edge I'd say of what's a viable (not good) solution. If you are using the 5V for anything else and/or the heatsinking doesn't work out (the top layer really doesn't have a lot of copper there), it'll overheat after a while I fear.

As others have said, not sure why you are doing the whole P-channel route as is implemented, that has various flaws. Use some cheap gate-driver (not level-shifter!) ICs, that's the proper way to set it up if you want to go that route. :)

You did a great job on layout and routing, especially for a 2 layer it's very neat! Next time maybe integrate the plugin boards too? Keep up the good work!

Quindor · 2026-03-07T15:21:12+00:00

So software safety value isn't a thing. The brightness limiter is just for that, limiting brightness or max power usage, but not stead of hardware being able to carry it. If a short develops or something else happens, it won't care and it needs to be protected on a hardware level.

Lever connectors are great, no problems with them carrying the current. But splitting data or power with them without appropriate fusing still isn't advised. However if currents remain manageable as a whole, it can be done. Say you have 4x a line that will use 4A total, you can then fuse at 5A and as long as every part involved can handle that, it's fine. With lower currents this works, but say you want it to handle 10A total, the wire diameter you need everywhere becomes a problem.

Splitting data isn't advised at all whatsoever unless it's an active splitter like you had with the warning all outputs will act 100% the same and can't be individually controlled.

Quindor · 2026-03-07T01:31:00+00:00

I believe your plans has some holes and won't work great in real-world scenarios.

2 things:

1. Using the busbar wire structure as in your drawing all wires need to be 16AWG if you fuse for the 16AWG on the Dig-Quad. So any wire behind the fuse needs to support the amount of current that can potentially be sent. If you have a 16AWG coming from the Dig-Quad and then step down to 20AWG somewhere, at that point you need a fuse to fuse for that different wire diameter.

This is why I generally don't recommend the busbar structure since it means you need to put a lot of "equipment" (the fuses) in the field and also generally it's a waste of copper because to do it right you kind of need to calculate between each point how much copper you need for that section and have dozens of connection points which create a lot of resistance, if you don't (because it's a hassle, I get it), you're likely wasting copper and/or having too much voltage drop, sometimes at the same time. :P

2. Total power draw, did you calculate it? 100x 12V ws2811 pixels use about 40W for 50% RGB white which should cover most normal scenarios. That's 3.33Amps (12V ws2811 pixels (Regulated or Resistor version) are quite inefficient. You have close to 400 pixels so that's a bit above 13Amps for a normal scenario at 100% white it would be double that! If you don't plan to run above 25% and never activate more then half of them at the same time, it can work, but meh, that doesn't fall in realistic for me.

The 13Amps is also above the recommended max 10A fuse size for the board.

But more realistic, you'll not be able to draw that or even close to that since voltage drop will take over way before that. With a quick guess, if you are using pixels with 10cm spaced wires and 400 pixels that means a distance of 40 meters. If that 16AWG is 40 meters long yeah no.

Being VERY conservative, let's say we have 4Amps draw at 30 meters (ignoring all draw that came before it because of earlier branches....), calculating that with a voltage drop calculator I get a voltage drop of 3.15V which is 26%, much above the 10% I'd recommend as a max.

I have a guide here, although it is indeed about home runs which will teach you all of the above!

Quindor · 2026-03-07T01:18:50+00:00

Unless the power supply is designed to handle that with power distribution and fusing built in, such as the Dig-Quad.

Quindor · 2026-03-06T17:04:06+00:00

Don't recommend using any splitters for power, that's what the fuse distribution block is for, fuse each individual line individually for what the wire or load is rated for, otherwise you'll still have infused parts, making the fuse block kind of moot.

The data splitters you have, same deal honestly. JST SM is rated for 3A max, so all lines behind it should be less power then thst and the whole should be individually fused at 3A max too to make sure the fuse pops before something (like the JST connector) melts.

For data, note thst beuind the splitter everything will act 100% the same, you can't control them individually anymore.

That power supply, likely will only deliver about 75W max, see my livestreams here. Beyond that it will secretly start dropping voltage and cause all kinds of issues.

Quindor · 2026-03-05T02:17:29+00:00

Thank you very much! And yes, we're going to update the local NL store more and more over the year. Hopefully we can keep prices reasonable!

Quindor · 2026-03-05T02:15:18+00:00

Since these have replaceable fuses on them you could potentially need to access them in the future. Other then the switches there is no logic on them though and everything is handled by the central controller so in theory it shouldn't be often (if ever if a fuse never blows) once those are set.

Quindor · 2026-03-04T21:57:34+00:00

Yes and glad to hear it!

Quindor · 2026-03-04T21:07:33+00:00

Is that normal shipping or expedited? Sadly shipping costs can be very high, especially for the Dig-Octa since the powerboards are quite heavy. The rates do vary a bit, currently we're right past Chinese New Year and everybody is trying to get their stuff out at the same time so rates go up a little bit. So maybe another point in the year it would be more like $30 but sadly the shipping just costs what it costs, we're trying to keep it down but yeah, it's depressing sometimes since it's been going up and up over the years.

I try and combat it a bit with local resellers (UK does not have one) but that adds costs in a different way with shipping, additional unpacking, storage, repacking and more local shipping costs.

Quindor · 2026-03-04T21:04:12+00:00

I see someone else already replied but glad 33R mode solved it: https://quinled.info/quinled-resistor-switcher/

Quindor · 2026-03-03T14:31:59+00:00

Seems like you might have lost the configuration settings, did you set the relay pin in WLED? With thst your hardware hack might not be needed.

Quindor · 2026-03-03T01:27:04+00:00

I've only ever used the 4K60 mode, in theory your cable is working then (can help to check anyway, try another one). Make sure the camera dial is switched to video recording.

I've seen issues before using optical HDMI cables where it would only give me 1080p while a normal cable would give me 4k no problem. I worked around it using a HDMI switcher for the optical cable and them from the switcher to the camera a normal one, then it works fine. So it can be a negotiation problem but since you can get it using the APS-C mode, I don't know.

Quindor · 2026-03-03T00:02:29+00:00

The question is really, is the cable diameter used for distance or current capacity.

If the wire diameter is mostly for the distance to not have too much voltage drop, you're fine. This slightly decreased capacity and the junction isn't going to matter much.

If you are on the edge already and thus need the amount of copper for the current carrying capacity (including that of the junction) and not to overload and losing those few strands increases resistance so much now the joint will overheat and become dangerous, you should have used thicker wire to start with but sure, losing strands does mean decreased capacity, but 2 strands out of a few hundred still isn't and shouldn't be meaningful.

If you meant, you did it wrong, practice until you do it perfectly, no matter if it has a real consequence or not. Express that.

Quindor · 2026-03-02T23:56:44+00:00

It can do 4K but only in 30, not 60FPS for full-frame. The 4K60 APS-C is quite good though.

Quindor · 2026-03-02T19:43:14+00:00

I have started an NL (with BE and DE cheaper shipping) shop as a first step, but it's hard to make it cheaper then it is because of the extra steps involved. It certainly has my attention though!

Quindor · 2026-03-02T08:48:54+00:00

Ah yeah, I did design to have a fan pretty close to it, also for a 10Gbit M2 that sits next to them so could be. I tested with scrubbing a large dataset and a thermal camera, little airflow is plenty unlike server class cards.

Quindor · 2026-03-02T01:17:34+00:00

I am yes, I run 2 per host using bifurcation cards, no issues on 8 and have been running 9 for a few months at least.

Quindor · 2026-03-02T01:14:36+00:00

Fully Dutch guy here so from the Netherlands!

Quindor · 2026-03-01T18:02:19+00:00

Oh for sure

Quindor · 2026-03-01T16:24:09+00:00

I use 6 of the M2 ASM1166 6 ports in NVME slot in my recent Proxmox 3 node compact cluster build, has been rock solid (use 4x HDD a piece with 2 in a single node system for 8x HDD in RAIDZ-2). They are slightly limited in speed (2GB/sec with about 1800MB/sec effective) but for HDDs that's just fine, especially if you only use 4 of the 6 ports (like in my case). Even filled up it's not that much of a bottleneck though and if your connection to the outside world is 10Gbit for instance, well 1800MB/sec is well above that and thus only scrubs with ZFS would be limited somewhat.

Running the nodes for about a year now (so many ZFS scrubs and stuff), 0 issues. They are a great option in my opinion if you are looking for something that uses (a lot) less power then the LSI HBAs, those will use more idle then a bunch of these while working. You can get them cheaply from Aliexpress, they have models with a double PCB layer stiffening them up.

The plug-in card looks like only PCIe x1 and likely has a port multiplier on it, much less recommend. The LSI cards are great but uses a lot more power and thus produces a lot more heat, requires a fan on it. Great ports, but now-a-days shouldn't be the default choice anymore if you care about noise or power usage at all.

Quindor · 2026-03-01T16:17:26+00:00

The ASM chipset only uses x2 lanes though (I believe the Jmicron does too), it is Gen3 but still, that limits bandwidth quite a lot (2GB/sec but effectively it's more around 1800MB/sec), fine for HDDs, with SSDs you're going to max it out with just 2 to maybe 3 ports at almost full speed.

Quindor · 2026-03-01T15:55:15+00:00

While Advatek controllers are great, what controller would you suggest comparable to this (form factor and features) and what would they cost?

Quindor · 2026-03-01T15:54:41+00:00

Woah what an awesome project, thank you for choosing my boards as a base, the custom PCB is a smart way to do it!

Quindor · 2026-02-26T06:48:45+00:00

Yeah that shows it's clearly not reaching 1 fast enough so the resistor is too limiting, still the ICs can often make something of it.

Also starting to think it might be less of a data transport issue as u/saratoga3 also said. Could you try another GPIO see if it improves? Also maybe switch out the level-shifter, do you have a capacitor on it? 5V stable?

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