Seed Pixel Outlines - my experience in 2024

So I added some new Seed Pixel outlines this year. I think they went really well - and wanted to share a couple of photos and a breakdown of the costs.

And my place ends up being a reasonable comparison - if you look at videos/photos of it - I have 5cm spaced bullet pixels in drilled out conduit, 30/m strip in channel with a diffuser, and 3cm seed pixels that I'll talk about below.

So my outlines I used 12v/3cm spaced/WS2815 seed pixels from knowshine. At the time of purchase - I ordered 100m (aka 3333 pixels) for $348.03 (including GST, delivery, etc). (Glancing at it now -- current price says $376). Link is here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006734381781.html (100m, 30mm spacing, Black Wire)

So that worked out to about $3.5/metre (where a metre was about 33 pixels)

And then I paired that with these 10mm c-channel outlines from Capral. https://shop.capral.com.au/813710/. Which are $20.28 per 6.5m segment. So about $3.12/metre.

So for around $6.62/metre - I ended up with some pretty great outlines. (I guess you can add the cost of pigtails, and some hot glue to stick them together. So maybe fudge it up higher).

For comparison - the ip65/30/12V/ws2815 strip from BTF lighting is currently $6.37/metre. And I'd still want something to mount it on.
For pixels - At 5cm spacing (instead of 3) you're talking maybe $6-8 for pixels + $1.80 for chromatrim + $1.60 for conduit.

So how did it all work?

• Well attaching the pigtails was fiddly - but I got it to work with @AAH's seedjoiners. (Side request Alan - can you make those any smaller? (especially shorter?))
• Attaching the pixels to the channel was incredibly simple and fast. In the end - I just hot-glued them. It worked pretty well - but not amazing. I might need to revisit next year. But *so* much easier than pushing hundreds of pixels (or drilling conduit).
• The pixels worked great. 0 failures, wire seems much better than what I had in 2023.
• The channel worked really well for protecting the ground outlines. At various points I (and others) stepped on the channel. But the pixels were fully protected inside.
• The house outlines worked really well. Very very happy with how all of the ones on the house looked.
• There is a reduced angle of visibility with the pixels being inside the channel. This is fine for all of the ones on the house (~8-15m away, pointing directly at the viewer). But it was more of a challenge for the ground ones (which I had pointing to the sky). The ones running parallel to the front fence were a bit hard to see.
• The channel did mean that I got dead straight lines. The one exception is where I had longer runs than 6.5metres. I didn't join them very well/at-all this year -- I've added a joiner piece of some larger c-channel and should resolve that issue next year.
• Packup was perhaps the best part.. I have some space under my house to store long thin stuff -- but bundling a few 1cm by 1cm channel it was simple to pass in and much easier to handle than the conduit drilled pixels. No wires hanging out to get snagged on things.

Here's some photos - and you can look at some videos I've posted (and more when I get around to editing them) of how they looked.







Here's my XLATW video for the year that gives perhaps a better view of how they all look.



tl/dr -- you should look at using seeds for your outlines. They worked great for me in 2024.

Awesome post!! I am new to lights, so I think seeds are the way to go for outlines, window frames, etc.

If I understand correctly, the seeds, fit into the C channel, then you mount these onto the roof etc.

How do you attach the C channel to the walls, roof line, window frames etc?

Thanks in advance.

PS: Your video is awesome.

Good question on mounting. I haven't worked out all the approaches yet.

• The ground stuff is just sitting on the ground
• The stuff along the gutter line is zip-tied to the gutter. My gutter has some rain overflow holes that I poked a tiny zip-tie through every metre or 2.
• The horizontal outlines on the far left and right are actually flat-topped brick walls. The channel is just sitting there completely unattached.
• The two vertical ones are a bit complex. I should have taken a better photo. Our upper story is rendered foam - so I didn't want to drill anything into it. So before putting the seeds into the channel - I attached a bracket that will wrap around the wall - and have magnets to hold onto the downpipes. I didn't mention in the post - but these are *very* light. Those verticals (2.5m) is maybe 300g of aluminium. And the seed pixels are really light as well. so they don't need much. The magnet approach *kindof* worked -- it did blow off once in a time when the wind was very high (pixels/pigtails/etc all survived that fine)

Here's a quick graphic of how the brackets looked. Imagine this is a birds-eye-view, looking directly down at the house. I used the Bunnings make-a-bracket things to bend out the metal. The red bits are magnets, green in the C-channel with pixels.

Thanks for the reply.

Just to update everyone. The seeds you mention in the link to Alibaba are currently 50% off.

Also, they are 4 wire, yet the joiner you mentioned has 3 wire.

What did you do with the 4th wire?

Cheers.

Pete

I think I noted in the original post that I paid slightly less for them (October 15th, 2024) than they are today. So I don't think that's a real sale (and so you probably don't need to rush) -- but I think it's still a good price.

So these are ws2815 - and so the 4th wire is a backup data line. In theory - one of the seeds can stop working - and the rest of the line will carry on with no issues.
For the initial pigtail - you attach the backup wire to the Ground (I just twisted the 2 wires and then soldered them onto that seedjoiner pad). So it's still only taking 3 wires from the controller.

Thanks for the reply.

I am curious as to how you connect the C- Channels to brick or fibro. Could you use hot glue to secure the channels or can you 'spot glue' along a vertical to hold them in place?

I plan to use the channels for protection on the ground etc.

Did you need to ad extra power along the lines? I read somewhere that people to 'power injections' is that for normal pixels. What happens with the seeds?

Thanks

Pete

Good question re: attaching to brick. I *suspect* it would be light enough. I've never tried hot-gluing stuff directly to the wall before, and never tried to remove it at the end of Christmas. Worst case -- you could hot glue the seeds directly to the brick.

I did not ad any extra power - these were run with just a cable running straight off the controller/receiver.
The longest run was 436 pixels (a smidge over 13 metres - running along the ground of the driveway on the right). I did not notice any yellowing - but I never saw the 1st & last pixel next to each other (as I just glued them direct into the channel as I unspooled them). (For reference - they came on 3x30m, 1x10m spools).

I suspect more power would help - but 12V pixels, not much wire length, they worked out well enough. I like doing PI for dense props - but this was all about keeping it simple.

Looks great.
The size of the joiners was made so that Joe Public who might not be too competent with soldering could work with them. I actually have some more joiners on the agenda and may well do a smaller version. If nothing else it will allow for more choice. I actually use the seedjoiners rather than the pixjoiners for normal pixels as I prefer the smaller size.

Is that channel made of alloy? What is the rigidity like? Could this be used as megatree strip to keep the seeds a bit more secure/straight/uniform?

Cheers

Over 2-3 metres it’s pretty rigid. so could work well for a flat tree - but I don’t think so use it for a 180 megatree though — there are definitely tradeoffs with angles.