Cables & Runs
Every data cable in the installation, its route, and what still needs measuring before ordering. Power cabling (PSU taps, AC feeds) is on the Power Map.
Electrical drawings V4 — punch list (updated 2026-08-15)
The V4 drawing set was reviewed page-by-page against the wiring database, and all eleven cable-length tables were transcribed into the cable audit sheet — 121 cables now have measured lengths there, each checked against the table’s own grand total. (A cable’s two ends share its number with an M or F suffix — cable 456 has connectors 456 M and 456 F.)
Fixed in V4 ✅ — the back elevation is retitled correctly (EL-110); the wash-chain data leads (411 / 416 / 421 / 429) and the back-tower top quad chains (379 / 384) are now drawn with lengths; the quad chain jumpers are itemized on every quad page; the quad chain labels are in place.
Label bugs in the V4 cable tables — the lengths are good, but five entries carry the wrong cable number. Fix in the model so the tables regenerate correctly:
| Sheet | Fix |
|---|---|
| EL-111 | ⬜ The LEFT minor-arch table lists cable 43, which is a right-side cable. That entry is cable 13 (the left arch-3 data lead — the right table correctly has its own 43 at the same 1’-8½” length). |
| EL-113 | ⬜ The table lists 478 twice and 477 not at all. The 21’-3” entry is cable 477 (the midway run); 478 is the short 2’-2” one at the foot. |
| EL-115 | ⬜ The table lists cable 455, which belongs to the back-LEFT tower. This box’s far-corner cable is 456. |
| EL-119 | ⬜ The table lists cable 119 — that entry is cable 199 (the first back-right spire lead). |
| EL-119 / EL-120 | ⬜ Cable 255 (a back-right spirelet lead) has no length anywhere — and EL-120’s table has an extra entry labeled 225 at 7’-6½”, which is spirelet-length and doesn’t belong on that page. Those are probably the same cable: confirm the stray “225” is really 255 and re-assign it. |
Needs reconciling — the drawings and the wiring database disagree about the short chain jumpers, and cable orders depend on which is right:
- ⬜ The V4 tables show 2–3 jumpers per quad arch, one of them ~9 ft on the bottom quads; the wiring database models 4 short (~1’6”) jumpers per quad.
- ⬜ The V4 tables show 5 links per front wash chain (one measured at 25’-3”) and no links at all for the back wash chains; the database models 6 per front chain and 3 per back chain.
Still missing from the set (carried over from the V2-1 review):
- ⬜ The front-tower power feed runs — cables 441–452, three fused pairs per tower between the lower (E) and upper (A) boxes.
- ⬜ The canopy data leads that start at the upper tower boxes: cables 399 / 401 (EL-121) and 405 / 407 (EL-120).
- ⬜ AC (generator) power — box drops 601–610 and the major-arch foot supplies 611–615 / 621–625.
- ⬜ Cable numbers on the network (Cat6) runs (500–514).
- ⬜ The rose window: petal leads, DC trunks 496–499, and rose Cat6 — or an explicit pointer to the rose-hub build sheet.
- ⬜ The five crown V+-cut jumper numbers (64 / 74 / 84 / 94 / 104) at the major-arch crowns — the red warning is there; the special jumpers need their numbers.
- ⬜ Confirm the male/female connector pattern from the front-right spire sheet got applied to the other three spire pages (the placeholder notes are gone in V4 — verify the pattern itself is drawn).
Network (Cat6) runs from the controller
The Falcon F48V5 controller lives at the bottom of the front-right tower. Eleven Cat6 runs leave it (ports 1–4 stay reserved for the controller’s own onboard outputs):
| # | Ports | Goes to | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5–8 | SR 5-8 (A), FR spire base → chains to SR 5-8 (E) | Straight up the front-right tower |
| 2 | 9–12 | SR 9-12 (A), FL spire base → chains to SR 9-12 (E) | Up FR tower, across the front support wire, to FL tower |
| 3 | 13–16 | SR 13-16 (A), BL spire base → chains to SR 13-16 (E) | Along the diagonal canopy line FR → BL |
| 4 | 17–20 | SR 17-20 (A), BR spire base → chains to SR 17-20 (E) | Along the rightmost canopy line, straight back |
| 5 | 21–24 | SR 21-24 (A), LEFT minor arches | Up FR tower, across the front support wire, down FL tower to arch 3 |
| 6 | 25–28 | SR 25-28 (A), RIGHT minor arches | Short direct run (co-located) |
| 7 | 29–32 | SR 29-32 (A), major arches | Short direct run (arch 4 is beside the tower) |
| 8 | 33–36 | SR 33-36 (A), rose hub | Up the tower scaffold to the window hub |
| 9 | 37–40 | SR 37-40 (A), rose hub | Same path |
| 10 | 41–44 | SR 41-44 (A), rose hub | Same path |
| 11 | 45–48 | SR 45-48 (A), rose hub | Same path |
Chain jumpers (short Cat6, box-to-box on the same tower): 4 needed — one per tower, SRx4 → E-box.
⚠️ Runs 2 and 5 share the front support wire; runs 3 and 4 follow canopy lines. Label both ends of every Cat6 before pulling it. The left-side and right-side minor-arch cables must not be swapped — the two boxes are identical and the show would render mirrored.
Distance check: the vendor figure for smart-receiver data is 300+ ft (~90 m), and experienced Falcon users treat 200–250 ft as the conservative floor. Our longest run (diagonal to BL, ~25–30 m with routing) is about a third of that. With the right cable, distance is not a constraint.
Cat6 cable spec — what to buy
During the rose-window bench test (Aug 2026), ordinary consumer ethernet patch cables did not carry the controller-to-receiver data reliably; better cables fixed it completely. The cause is cable construction, not distance: cheap patch cables are usually CCA (copper-clad aluminum), which has 2–3× the resistance of real copper and is the Falcon community’s most-warned-against failure. Buy to this spec and the problem cannot recur:
- Cat6, 23 AWG, solid PURE BARE COPPER conductors — if a listing doesn’t say “pure copper” or “solid bare copper,” assume it’s CCA and skip it. (Check a cut end: a silvery core is aluminum.)
- Unshielded (UTP) is correct — the differential pair needs no ground reference, so there is nothing to gain from a shield and no shield-grounding to get wrong on the steel scaffold.
- Outdoor / UV-rated jacket (CMX, CMXT, or OSP rating) for playa sun and heat.
- Prefer factory pre-terminated cables in the lengths from the cable audit sheet, plus two spares of the longest length. Field crimps are the one variable we can’t verify before the playa. No inline couplers — one unbroken cable per run.
- Verified product examples: trueCABLE Cat6 Outdoor Unshielded (bulk), Cable Matters outdoor Cat6 bulk, Custom Cable Connection pre-terminated outdoor patch cables (confirm pure copper when ordering).
Termination reminders: the termination switch goes ON only at the last receiver of each chain — a board terminated mid-chain blocks all data behind it, and an unterminated chain end causes ghosting. Use the switches on the boards; do not use DIY 120-ohm terminator plugs.
Contingency (packed insurance): there is no commercial “booster” for this link — but every smart receiver regenerates the signal onto its output, so a spare SRx1 dropped mid-run is the fix for a marginal cable. Spare SRx1 v5 boards are ~$40 from pixelcontroller.com and double as replacement receivers.
DC power wire — spool totals by gauge
The DC power cables get built on playa from spools. Totals below come from the cable audit sheet (every DC run’s measured or estimated length × quantity, as of 2026-08-16):
| Gauge | Cables | Run total | +15% build margin | Spool buy (2-conductor) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 AWG | 10 | 117 ft | ~135 ft | 1× 250 ft spool |
| 14 AWG | 45 | 782 ft | ~900 ft | 2× 500 ft spools |
What’s in each gauge:
- 12 AWG — the two 12 V flood feed pairs (cables 443↔446, 449↔452), the four quad far-corner leads (453–456), and the four rose window trunks (496–499).
- 14 AWG — the four 24 V tower feed pairs (441↔444 … 448↔451), all twenty minor-arch injection runs (457–476), all nineteen major-arch pod branches (477–495), and the two back-tower wash power runs (411 / 416).
These are pair-run lengths. Every DC run is a V+/GND pair, so a 2-conductor (bonded red/black) spool buys exactly the numbers above. Buying single-conductor spools instead? Double per color: ~135 ft each of red and black in 12 AWG, ~900 ft each in 14 AWG.
Caveats: cables 411/416 contribute 83 ft of the 14 AWG total at lengths that are still being verified against the drawings — the recommended buy is safe either way. AC cabling is not included (no lengths yet). The 15% margin covers cut waste, connector tails, and playa re-dos.
Data pigtails (SR → strip first pixel)
Hard limit that governed SR placement: ≤ 5 m from SR socket to the strip’s first pixel (up to ~10 m tolerable with heavy ground; avoid). Every box on the SR Boxes page was placed so all its runs are ≤ 2 scaffold lengths (~4 m). If a run in the field can’t make ≤ 5 m, don’t improvise — flag it.
Cable order list
Lengths depend on final SR/PSU placement on the scaffold — measure at placement, then fill this in before ordering (the shopping list tracks the order itself):
| Cable | Type | Qty | Length | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller → SR runs | Outdoor/shielded Cat6 | 11 | TBD — sum of routes above | ⏳ measure |
| Chain jumpers | Cat6 | 4 | ~1–2 m each | ⏳ confirm |
| xConnect extensions (SR → strip data-in) | 3-pin xConnect | per box | ≤ 5 m each | ⏳ count per box page |
| Quad power taps | 12 AWG 2-conductor | 10 (6 SR-corner + 4 opposite-corner on the big quads; back-top quads are single-end) | TBD | ⏳ measure |
| Rose far-end taps | 18 AWG 2-conductor | 16 | short — join at the rose-center split (#115) | ⏳ confirm |
| AC feeds (generator → PSUs, front → back along canopy) | — | — | — | Electrician (see Power Map) |
Cable labels
Each connector end gets a printed tag: junction ID + M/F in large type, strand ID, and a locating note. All labels are generated from the wiring database (wiring-db/strands.db) by td/generate-labels.py all — the database is machine-checked against the controller config on every regen (pixel-map/validate.py), so the sheets below are current as of the last commit. Match the tag to the Cable label column on each box’s SR Boxes page table.
| Strand type | Cable-end labels | SR output labels |
|---|---|---|
| Rose window petals | rw-petal-labels | rw-sr-labels |
| Major arches | major-arch-labels | major-arch-sr-labels |
| Minor arches | minor-arch-labels | minor-arch-sr-labels |
| Quad arches | quad-arch-labels | quad-arch-sr-labels |
| Spires | spire-labels | spire-sr-labels |
| Spirelets | spirelet-labels | spirelet-sr-labels |
| Canopy | canopy-labels | canopy-sr-labels |
| Wash floods | wash-labels | wash-sr-labels |
| Power feed & tap stubs (2-pin connectors: box stubs + run ends, labels 441–499) | power-feed-labels | — |