Add some strip length gotchas to Help

[OakCityDirtyRandy]

Some of the oddest things you'll notice on a group ride -- riding behind other VESC riders -- are weird Taillight behaviors that are often the result of misspecified strip lengths. This is especially common in daisy-chained configurations, because what you expect to see in one strip will bleed into another. This edit seeks to clarify why this happens.

[OakCityDirtyRandy]

This is the revised text for the strip length help.

Note:

Strip length can be determined by counting the number of physical LEDs in the strip.
Incorrectly specified strip length will often manifest itself in animations behaving oddly.
Strip length is especially important in configurations in which the strips are daisy-chained together, which the LCM will treat as though it is a single strip.
In daisy-chained configurations, incorrect strip lengths result in animations split over multiple strips and they just don't look right.
Strip length is uniquely important for the Status bar, as it provides information on remaining charge, which might be presented incorrectly if the count is wrong.

[lukash]

An unwanted merge commit in this PR branch as well.

[lukash]

Extraneous commit still on the branch.

You're adding these two bullet points:

• Strip length can be determined by counting the number of physical LEDs in the strip.
• Incorrectly specified strip length will often manifest itself in animations behaving oddly.

Imo the first one should be clear enough, but if you think it needs mentioning, I'd incorporate it into the first sentence something like this:

Number of LEDs in your status bar strip (you can count them as you see them).

Or something along those lines.

For the second one I'm not sure if there's anything particular which breaks animations (then it's likely a bug), I'd assume when the count is too low maybe? But I'd prefer not to have this line as it's either not useful or in case there is really odd behavior, it should be fixed.

The rest of the bullet points looks good to me.

[OakCityDirtyRandy]

The second case (incorrect count) can occur in daisy chained configs, in which case part of your Front animations may show up in your Rear if length is too long or your Rear might show up in your Front if it's too short. In non-daisy chained configs, a strip will be used incompletely if the count is low. If it's too high, there can be a pause when they reach the sides in animations that go side to side. And then there's what happens if you have dedicated headlights LEDs like some Fungineers front boxes. These must be included in Front counts even though they're not used in non-Headlights. (And even though Fungi says the count is 10 when it should be 14.) Go with whatever you think best. Maybe we bail on a long-ish explanation for 1.3.1 and I can provide video examples of these things and add more detail later.

…

On Sun, Oct 18, 2026, 11:27 Lukáš Hrázký ***@***.***> wrote: *lukash* left a comment (lukash/refloat#110) <#110 (comment)> Extraneous commit still on the branch. You're adding these two bullet points: - Strip length can be determined by counting the number of physical LEDs in the strip. - Incorrectly specified strip length will often manifest itself in animations behaving oddly. Imo the first one should be clear enough, but if you think it needs mentioning, I'd incorporate it into the first sentence something like this: Number of LEDs in your status bar strip (you can count them as you see them). Or something along those lines. For the second one I'm not sure if there's anything particular which breaks animations (then it's likely a bug), I'd assume when the count is too low maybe? But I'd prefer not to have this line as it's either not useful or in case there is really odd behavior, it should be fixed. The rest of the bullet points looks good to me. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#110?email_source=notifications&email_token=BXIEQCRKP3D7EDZHIZ5OL4D5UTOMNA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTMMRVGE3DMNRYG422M4TFMFZW63VGMF2XI2DPOKSWK5TFNZ2KYZTPN52GK4S7MNWGSY3L#issuecomment-6251666875>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BXIEQCQZTBJKC77WPYOQU6L5UTOMNAVCNFSNUABFKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHM4DAOBXG43DONRQHNEXG43VMU5TKNRXGAYTINBTGYY2C5QC> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[lukash]

I dropped the merge commit, did a fresh rebase on main and force-pushed into your branch.

[OakCityDirtyRandy]

Thanks! Sorry for the bogus merges. Hell, I think I've gone a whole day without doing that again.

…

On Sun, Oct 18, 2026, 12:50 Lukáš Hrázký ***@***.***> wrote: *lukash* left a comment (lukash/refloat#110) <#110 (comment)> I dropped the merge commit, did a fresh rebase on main and force-pushed into your branch. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#110?email_source=notifications&email_token=BXIEQCQGZ4OE5EBEM2NCOCD5UTYFRA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTMMRVGI2TCNZVHEYKM4TFMFZW63VGMF2XI2DPOKSWK5TFNZ2KYZTPN52GK4S7MNWGSY3L#issuecomment-6252517590>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BXIEQCVNF5ISYPL7RJPRVN35UTYFRAVCNFSNUABFKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHM4DAOBXG43DONRQHNEXG43VMU5TKNRXGAYTINBTGYY2C5QC> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[lukash]

I pushed a fixup commit with wording changes (I reduced the verbosity a bit again and grouped the logical points better across the bullets).