PoleFX Engineering Journal
Notes from the bench
LED power, signal integrity, firmware and related topics.
Latest field notes
02 / ARCHIVE
Measuring an LED pole until it browns out (on purpose)
Real current, voltage, and light measurements from an SK6813 LED installation: what FastLED's power limiter actually delivers, a per-pixel power model good enough to predict any pattern's draw, and a deliberately induced power supply collapse.
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Chasing 60 fps down the LED wire with a $15 logic analyzer
Per-pixel decoding of our LED data lines with a knockoff Saleae: a refactored firmware that turned out to deliver 42.5 of the engine's 60 fps, five measured builds to close the gap, and an RGB sparkle bug that predated the whole session. Includes one self-inflicted bug, one disproven hypothesis, and a ~392,000-frame soak to prove the fixes.
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