Hello my name is chris, I'm from Ireland. And this is my five year plan

[ROTCK]

Hi so i placed an order on AliExpress, I placed 3 separate orders with 3 different vendors, first 2 were shipped
before the shipping date, 3rd one then didn't ship by the agreed date and count down clock to shipping
ran down to about 1 day left and then got extended to a further 16 days to shipping.
So as far as i'm concerned they broke the agreement and i want to cancel the order and go with someone else.
my question is am I being too contrary? Is this something that happens regularly? or did i pick a bad vendor.

It was with ETOP and not Ray Wu, ETOP offered cheaper prices and i got sucked in i think.
Has anybody had a similar experience?

It was a big order (i think) 100 5V strings, power supplies, plastic mounting strips and pigtail connectors.
Should i go with smaller quantities or something.
Any advice would be appreciated thanks.

 

[David_AVD]

When was the expected shipping date?

 

[TANSA]

The Chinese government has just let these companies start trading.
Use the AliExpress app to check on the tracking or message them.

 

[ROTCK]

Order was made with ETOP on 15/02 got order confirmation email on 15/02 got payment confirmation
email on 15/02. original estimated deliver time was 17 to 25 days and 12 to 19 days depending
on individual items. original shipping time was 7 business days across all items. So it wasn't shipped within
7 business and in the order details it has a count down timer which said we will automatically give you a refund
if the order does't ship within a certain period of time, when i checked it on the 27th it was down to 2 days
and then i checked it on the 28th it had gone up to 16 days to shipping, and i didn't get a message to say
that this was happening or they didn't ask me if this was ok. which leads me to think that the timer thing
is a load of bull.
As i mentioned earlier i made 3 orders with 3 separate vendors. 1 shipped on 20th with tracking info and
will arrive in 5 days and second shipped on 24th with tracking info and will arrive in 9 days.

I think what is bugging me the most is just the lack of communication, if they had just sent a message
and said they will ship in 2 or 3 weeks I would have been more then happy to wait.
I probably shouldn't say this in the automated christmas lighting world, BUT IT IS ONLY FEBRUARY.

What are your experiences with aliexpress, with deliver times, I would especially be interested in hearing
from people from Ireland or Europe. I don't think their is too many that do it in this part of the world.
Is their anybody else on her from Ireland or the UK.

Jeff from CanispaterChristmas made a suggestion in one of his videos to contact Ray Wu directly by email
do ye think this is a better route to go down or stick to aliexpress

 

[David_AVD]

The COVID19 situation has impacted all Chinese manufacturers and sellers. This is the likely reason for the delays and lack of communication. So many sellers just don't have staff back yet. One place I deal with there still only has about 50% of the workers back. So don't be too quick to condemn Chinese sellers at the moment.

 

[Martin Mueller]

You have a great canvas. That many windows to outline and play with. All that open space for singing props and a matrix or two. Stick a 180 degree mega tree on the end of the housing unit and you will blow everyone away. BIG NOTE: Sequencing takes a looong time. It will take much longer than you expect. My show takes almost two hours to sequence 10 seconds of music (I am slow but others spend significant time as well). The reason I bring this up is: Dont wait until August to start selecting music and sequencing the lights. You do not need the lights to be able to create the sequence, you just need to know what you want them to look like. Spend a night or two every week just working on the sequencing.

 

[Martin Mueller]

There are a few Christmas light vendors in Germany. There is even one that resells the Boscoyo strips and coro props. I know of a few dozen people in England and Germany that decorate. You are in good company.

 

[ROTCK]

The COVID19 situation has impacted all Chinese manufacturers and sellers. This is the likely reason for the delays and lack of communication. So many sellers just don't have staff back yet. One place I deal with there still only has about 50% of the workers back. So don't be too quick to condemn Chinese sellers at the moment.

I didn't condemn any Chinese seller, I'm new to all this and I merely shared my experience in order to gain insight from others.

 

[ROTCK]

Hi Martin,
Thanks for the info i found that re-seller in Germany, I did loads of google searches and didn't find anything
like that. Amazon or Ebay were my only options for local suppliers.
THIS IS ONLY FEBRUARY was meant to be a joke. I'm allowing myself 5 years to have a decent display on the big project.
I won't be doing any automated lights on the big project this year, instead i will be cutting my teeth on my own house
You are completely right on the sequencing side of things, I'm using Xlights and i have created a layout of my own house
and did some basic sequencing, I think it took me about 2 hours to do 5 seconds one Saturday morning and all I did was a
whole house spinner and added VU meter effects. Its absolutely amazing what you can do with Xlights and it will take me
years to get anywhere near a basic level of what some people do.

On the big project I was thinking the same thing with the gable end, a mega tree or a giant matrix would be amazing.
From the ground to the peak is about 14 meters (45 feet), so going with a 50mm spacing that's 280 pixel per string and then
it slopes down to about 8 meters (26 feet) which would be 160 pixels per string. Thats a lot of pixels and a lot of power injection
which is a little outside my budget and skill set for the moment. I would love to talk more about this at a later date.
It just crying out for something.

Thanks again Chris.

 

[Martin Mueller]

You mentioned ebay and amazon as sources for your pixels. I use ebay pixels. They have almost double the failure rate of those purchased from Ray Wu, other AliExpress vendors and Amazon. I am ok with the failure rate because the pixels are on my house and I have made sure it is easy to get any single prop down and repair it (there are failures EVERY week). Many people that purchased the more expensive pixels from Ray Wu claim to have had multiple year runs with zero failures. I mention this because you are looking at putting pixels up on a building in which you do not live. That means it is more difficult to monitor the show for issues (unless you install web cams).

 

[TANSA]

My first year eBay lights have only had 1 fail out of 1000 “ alarmporestore” 2nd year running not one has failed, the next 1000 (for second year) I have had about 2 fail per string all in a month of running at 30%.
So I went back to the original vendor as it was still about $100 cheaper buy than from Ray’s super special bulk buy pack in this years purchase of 2000.
Luck of the draw, read the specs wire size named parts etc. and don’t get the absolute cheapest.

 

[Gar863834]

Hey where you based I'm not long on the site just starting myself I got quotes from Ray Wu direct I'll attach it there might help very fast response via email. Hoping to have a show by 2022 just like yourself funds n the mrs to get past