Hello from Sydney

[Max Kabilafkas]

Hey everyone

I have been thinking about getting into fancy Christmas lighting for a while now and I have finally decided to make it a 2021 project! While I am currently living in Menai, my wife and I are about to embark upon building our future family home in Berowra and I am hoping to have a great display for our first Christmas there next year

I have had a read through the 101 and have been doing a bit of looking through the website and have a reasonable idea what kit I need to get, but would appreciate any feedback I can get from those more experienced than I. Ideally I want to get something that is nice and accessible for a newbie (although I do have a mechatronics degree so I know my way around a soldering iron) whilst also being robust enough that I wont need to throw it all away as I get better and build more and more advanced setups over the years.

I'm thinking of getting the Falcon F16v3 ready to run - https://www.pixelcontroller.com/sto...oller=product#/pigtail_type-ray_wu/voltage-5v. It's a bit pricey but I like the idea of it all being setup for me, plus it looks robust enough that I will never have to replace it. Not too sure about the benefits of the different pigtail types?

For lights I'm liking the look of these WS2812B Pixel strips from Ray Wu on Ali express - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/926778326.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.39.1cae60e8yb8rrG . With pixel lights on Ali Express is it worth waiting until after Christmas to buy? Do these things ever get discounted?

Apart from the xlights program (which is free) is there anything else that I would need to buy in order to get started?

Thanks!

Max

 

[Pavle]

Welcome, building a new house will certainly be a good time to consider how you will install Christmas lights

plenty of advice available on this forum and I’ve also sent you a PM as we are neighbours almost.

 

[JohnsRdChristmas]

Hey Max,

Few things, Regarding pigtails, choose 1 style and stick with it (unless you plan on running bother 12v and 5v, then maybe seperate may be good way to distinguish), I went Raywu style 13.5's which are good, and there is also xconnect which is seemingly more popular, and as there are a few vendors direct in china that make them you can generally get both the ray wu and xconnect styles,

You can email the vendors directly and often get better quotes, and better rates for shipping etc,
But be careful not to go over the $1000AUD otherwise you will be up for GST, and this includes shipping,

Theres abit of a saying, Friends dont let friends buy strip, Pixel strip is great and i use it on my gutter line, but beware that it can be abit of a pain, it can be fragile unless you use pvc or something rigid to zip tie it to, and the strip normally has a silicon cover over the top which is how its water proof, but cutting and sealing ends can be fun, and if it dies you may need to cut abit off making the strip a few cm shorter, soldering to it is easy enough with practice,

The f16 is a good choice, ready to run will be fine, but may be expensive to get over here, but building your own is a good acheivement, and a good learning curve,
Kulp boards are also growing in popularity,

Be warned, pixels are addictive,

 

[Max Kabilafkas]

Hi Cathelest

Thanks for the reply

I'm definitely not averse to using the string style lights (like the ones I've attached), but from my looking around it seems that they all seem to be WS2811 rather than WS2812 LEDs. From what I have read, I think the WS2811 LEDs cannot be individually controlled, but instead are controlled in groups of 3?

Not sure if that's correct?

 

[JohnsRdChristmas]

With the string style (nicknamed nodes or pixels) they are all controlled individual,

With strip.
You are right that often ws2811 strip is generally 3 lights per controllable section, but on things like gutter lines and house outlines strip is great, and strip can give a better density of lights, eg, 30 leds per meter, or 60 lights per meter etc, You can get individually controllable strip (as per your link), but less common and not needed for most applications,

maybe a strip matrix or tree made out of it, which is fine to do, but most would go for nodes, entirely up to you.

 

[Katekate]

WS2811 strip is 3 leds per pixel if its 12v

bullets are always 1 led per pixel.

WS2811 = standalone chip, with separate led.
WS2812 = control chip is part of the led.

WS2812 strip is almost always 5v only. there is a few that make it with a 12v -> 5v converter on the back every meter.

WS2813 = 5v, with backup data lines. (failed led wont take out the whole string)
WS2815 = 12v, with backup data lines.

 

[bpratt]

You are at the ideal time with new home build, as you can get powerpoints installed in the places that you want, i.e. outdoor gpo's near where you want to put your psu's outside in the yard, separate circuits for your lights than your gpo's in the house.

Also, since you are just starting out, make a decision on your pigtail future. Many people here see the xconnect pigtails as the numero uno choice for pigtails these days. I started with Ray Wu pigtails last year, so I will stick with that in to the future.