First timer from SE-Melbourne

chee5eburger

chee5eburger

New elf
Joined
Dec 12, 2022
Messages
7
Location
Lyndhurst
Hi everyone
Decided to move on from static lights this year and try out a simple pixel display with the intention of going bigger in the future.
Starting completely from scratch, but I'm confident software-wise and a complete beginner with the hardware/electrical side of things.

Wish me luck!
 
Welcome and enjoy the journey.
Lots of useful threads and the 101 guide is a must read for a overall initial understanding.
 
Welcome aboard
Another one here from 3977

The ACL group is a great place to start, and a mini is a near 2nd!

There is a decent community tin the SE of Melb with lots of knowledge, ideas & creativity
 
Welcome to ACL. Joining chat and asking questions there is a massive heads up to getting going with pixels or any type of light display.
The ACL101 and the Xlights Zoom room are probably 2nd and 3rd.
 
thewanderingpine said:
@chee5eburger - why don’t you walk us through your plans? What are you thinking to put up this year? We can give some guidance on ideas/changes/vendors/etc.
Click to expand...

This year I'm just going to line the gutter with led strips and maybe a few small arches.
I don't want to go crazy with a controller than can power the world, but I also don't want to be stuck with something underpowered in future.

I've been looking at the falcon 16v4 "ready to run" to save me learning too much about the electrical side of things for now, and I've got a cheap and nasty pixel strip from amazon because I bought before watching the above video.

Happy to change to anything else that's better suited. I've got a couple of pis lying around, but a hat sounds not worth it from the video?

Also struggling a little with terminology, eg. "universe", "string", etc.
I'm assuming a strip with 50 lights on it is 1 string and 50 pixels?

I've messed around a bit with xLights, and experimented with example animations and stuff so I think that's going to be my software of choice
 
3806 here - welcome!

I can't remember if the 101 has a glossary..

Strings just identify a length of pixels it can be any number on a string (there are limitations around power etc. which would determine maximum length)

Since this was originally based on stage lighting, many of the terms (such as universes, channels) come from this. It can get quite confusing and understanding to this level isn't necessary to get started (although it can help to frame some of the concepts if using e.131 protocol)
 
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I’m not sure that Falcon sell the RTR in Australia (I’m not sure anyone really does/can unfortunately)

Forget you ever heard the word universe — with modern xLights you really don’t need to know what it means.

For strip — I think it’s really good in situations where it’s permanently affixed and not able to flex/move/etc. if you want to put it up temporarily and then take it down every year - you might want to look at strands of bullet pixels in a q
 
*in some form of way to evenly space them out right. (Drilled holes in conduit, megatree strip, there’s some coro options as well)
 
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