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QuinLED Diff-Adv Wiring Guide

With the Sender and Receiver boards it can seem slightly complicated how it all goes together, in this article I will try to explain from a simple to more advanced examples what the Diff-Adv system can be used for and how it would be wired together.

For all scenarios the following rules apply:

  • Any point in the chain can extract any channel
    • So 3rd board in the chain can extract pair 1 or the 1st board can extract chain 3, all fine
    • Multiple boards can extract the same channel
      • This way you could even have 5v ws2812b at one spot acting exactly the same as 12v ws2815 at another spot! (although color order issues may occur if the chips are connected differently)
  • All boards can run their own voltage and power supply
    • No need for shared GND between them
    • One board can only have a single (voltage) power supply
  • Last board in the chain needs the yellow termination plug
    • A termination plug comes delivered with the Sender-4 board
  • Total cable length is 500m max
    • This has been tested with having multiple boards linked into the chain and couplers to extend the cables
    • Longer might work, just not properly tested

Point to Point | Like a Diff-Solo

Although the Diff-Adv system is slightly more expensive in a point to point scenario vs the Diff-Solo there might still be reasons to go this route.

  • If you need some of the extra features the Diff-Adv system provides
    • Full 5v-48v support for both Sender and Receiver boards
    • Broken fuse Indicators on all Receiver boards
    • Power Distribution on the Receiver-Midpoint-2
    • Daisy chaining of multiple channels in the future
      • You can start with just one Receiver-Midpoint board and expand over time

Single Receiver board scenario

2 receiver scenario

Expanding on the above scenario we can introduce a second Receiver-Midpoint-1 board to another spot where you need it. Say you are doing a 20m line of ws2815 LEDs so 1200LEDs in total. This requires 2 data channels from your controller.

If the start of the LEDs is already 10m away from the controller (maybe it’s in a central location) you can locate the first Receiver-Midpoint-1 board at the start of the strip and then after another 10m have a second Receiver-Midpoint-1 board for the next set of 600LEDs. This way you’ll be able to keep a good framerate for all LEDs connected without running into data wires getting too long.

You can connect the boards in any order you would like. Each “pair” or data channel you put into the Sender-4 is available at any of the receiver boards! So if you want the first board to extract pair 3 and then the second board to extract pair 1, that’s perfectly fine.

Changing to a Receiver-Midpoint-2

In a different scenario you might have a single location that calls for either 2x LED data outputs or having more power injection available because you have a lot of 5v or 12v strips/strings nearby. Then a Receiver-Midpoint-2 is a much better choice being able to handle up to 20A of power on it’s own with power distribution and fusing built-in!

One spot where you need 2 LED strips/strings and another spot where you just need one!

 

8 channels from a Dig-Octa!

If you have a much bigger setup you could use a Dig-Octa Brainboard which has 8x LED output and route that into 2x Sender-4, that way you can run 2x UTP cable chains to wherever you need them and connect your LEDs in those spots. Since in this scenario there is no real LED power required at the brainboard location you don’t need a powerboard! A 5v 3A power supply (beefy phone charger) would even suffice! (The brainboard and sender-4 require about ~500mA but can require more during peaks so a 5v 3A charger is recommended)

Do note the capabilities of the ESP32 running WLED don’t change, the max advised amount of LEDs per brainboard is about 2000 LEDs. So say you are going 8 props with a 100LEDs each, using a single brainboard is fine. But if you want to run 600LEDs per output, I would advise to split it over 2x brainboard for instance.

The below scenario combines everything of the system currently available!

Dig-Octa Brainboard scenario with 8x LED output split over 2x UTP chains

End conclusion

Hopefully this article does a good job at showing you how you can wire everything up. The Diff-Adv system is great at getting the data to where it needs to go so you don’t need to put any “intelligent” devices in the field or hard to reach places, you can keep the “brain” central and have just a dumb board at the edge.

It also still allows for proper level-shifter and fuses at the edge so you just need a power supply and can hook it all up without having to worry about anything else!

With the 5-48v compatibility of all boards it’s also ideal for driving newer 36v and 48v LED strings that have become available in the recent year even though the current Dig-Uno/Quad/Octa board only support up to 24v!