Hello all .... new member here

[Karlos]

I'm new to the Christmas lighting scene. I'm a retired engineer with enough time on his hands now to take on projects like this.

My first project will be a simple low voltage set-up that will switch on/off maybe 30-40 12VDC pixie light LED strings. I want the light show sequenced to music of my choice. I'm thinking a sequencer such as xLights, generating fseq files to be run on a raspberry Pi with FPP. I hope I can use a simple relay board for the hardware controller, but not sure of the communication interface between the two. Do I need E1.31 or DMX protocols to communicate with the relay board, or can I just connect via the GPIO pins using I2C ?? Lots of head scratching at this point ... so I'm reading the forums. Any suggestions and help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers to all,
Karlos

 

[TerryK]

Welcome to ACL.

If you have not already, I would suggest downloading a copy of the ACL 101 manual. If will answer quite a few questions and help get you started. I'm just getting started as well.

I went with a small Falcon controller (F4V3), E1.31, and xLights. I have not played with xLights yet although I plan on running everything from a PC. The use of a rPi is also fairly common. I have a couple rPis but use them for other purposes. I'm sitting on the fence whether to use 5 or 12 volt LEDs. I have a string of each I'm still toying with.

A relay board will only give you on/off control which will not work with any intelligent pixel strings such as a 2811. As such most individuals here are moving towards intelligent control of pixels in either strings or strips. Intelligent control gives one the ability to control each pixel's color and brightness. While a favorite controller seems to be a Falcon, there are some other nice competitor controllers. E1.31 seems to be growing in popularity over DMX although both are still widely used. Whether you use E1.31 or DMX will be determined by the controller you select and some controllers can support both.

There are strings that can be driven from the rPi's GPIO pins but I don't remember if they are I2C. Adafruit or Pololu carries them I think. In the end it will come down to what you feel works best for you, what you are planning, and how do you anticipate growth in your project(s).

 

[AAH]

Hi and welcome to ACL Karlos
Without knowing the specifics of the pixie strings that you mentioned it's hard to give super relevant advice. The ACL101 will be handy as a reference for you. If the pixie strings are plain dumb low voltage led strings then a DMX dimmer like my DMX36 or many others could potentially do the job for you. If the strings are actually intelligent pixel strings then you can run fairly straight off a Raspberry Pi running Falcon Player. It is easier with a cape like my rPi-28D+ or the multitude of similar ones as these have the level converters, fusing and connectors built in.
If you share some further info on the specific lights then the info given can get more specific.

 

[Mark_M]

@AAH (above) sells boards that takes WS2811 in and has transistors to switch 12v (possibly more?). Unlike relays, transistors can be switched on and off very fast for PWM which can dim the lights attached.

E1.31 seems to be growing in popularity over DMX although both are still widely used. Whether you use E1.31 or DMX will be determined by the controller you select and some controllers can support both.

E1.31 takes multi universes of DMX, it's just over network and not XLR.
DMX alone on an XLR can only do one universe.

Falcon Pi player can output using the GPIO pins I believe? I know at least for a limited amount of pixels.