Math for Determining Max Amount of LEDs:
Hello FastLED,
I am embarking on a new project, that by my calculations will utilize around 3,711 LEDs. My previous largest LED count was 3,039, so this will be a decent sized increase. In that project, I used WS2812b LEDs and the OctoWS2811 hardware and library from PJRC, along with a Teensy 3.2. I am pretty sure that I could use this setup once again, but I am interested in using either APA102 or SK9822.
That said, will I be better off (higher overall frame rate) to use parallel output with the WS2812b? Does anyone know the math to determine frame rate based on MCU, LED Type, and LED count?
Thanks!!!
@Matt_Richard I have 2340 x APA102 pixels on the Wow Suit. My new design which uses a multiplexer, a Raspbery pi with SPI @ 12Mhz and the BCM2835 library ( http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/ ) i have to put in a delay of 10Ms between each frame render or it all looks like 1 giant wash of color. If you wire up the SK9822 really neatly and power them properly, you can drive them at 30Mhz. That’s a ludicrous refresh rate even if you intend to use 4K+ LEDs. Your frame rate is relatively easy to work out. Its the number of bytes you need to transmit in 1 frame based on the SPI frequency. For 3039 pixels thats 4(startFrame)+(30394)(Pixels)+(1934)(endFrame)= 12,932 Bytes. At 10Mhz thats 0.00986633 Seconds per frame, roughly 101FPS(im not taking into acount any processing inbetween frames)…Someone correct me please if im wrong 
@Leon_Yuhanov thanks for the reply. Does the end frame change depending on the LED controller type? As in, are there differences between WS2812, LPD8806, APA102?
@Matt_Richard The end frame in my example is only relevant to the APA102 and SK9822. Has to do with the fact that each pixel outputs the clock inverted to the input or something like that. You dont really need an end frame as the pixels lock onto the start frame, but its good to use it if your after synchronized rendering