Hi everyone we are from Victoria.

fiona scott

fiona scott

Myers lights
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Messages
11
Location
Sale
Hi to every one on this fabulous site . I have always done xmas lights every year for the last 20+years and never missed a year lol . I become a member back in 2014 and was going to start my first year using pixel strips but unfortunately things changed and was unable to start. Now this year i am going to do it not just for my kids but without going into to much detail my father has got terminal cancer and wanting to do it for him and hope that he gets to see it at christmas. I am no tech head but learning on the way so please be patient with me lol. So here it goes I am going to use pixlite 16 mk11 controller board , using ws2811 strips. 30 led/m ..10 pixel/ m . On Xlights program. I will need about 150 meters of strip for the edges of my house and roof . And looking to do about 6 mini trees and 6 arches and about 6 poles. Nothing to advanced at the moment . I have been reading up and watching lots of videos on everyones set ups and wiring . I want to do power injection and not through the controller . Is this a good way to do it ? And needing help on any thing else i will need to start up . what power supplies to buy and power cables to get and conectors people use and where . Still not sure on how to wire up from PSU to strips for power injection .if anyone has got a good video or can teach me that would be great Thanks in advance .
 
Join the official XLights group. Drop into the XLights Zoom from about 7pm to midnight Friday night and ask questions. Lots of people willing to share photos and point you to videos that will help. And then there is Acl chat ... a dodgy crowd with occasional wisdom.
 
Welcome Fiona !

Did you say 150m of strip for the outline?
What a lot of us use are PSUs from Ray Wu . Measure the different lengths of your strip and accordingly , you could ask ray for strips of a particular length (I rounded mine to the nearest meter and adjusted accordingly) and to have him connect the pigtails to the strip at the same time. He has T connectors that can be used for the Power connection . My strips are all 12V. Similarly for the trees (12V pixels) and arches (strip inside pipe) , I estimated how many would be required for each element and accordingly (rounded them) and ordered such that they mostly fit.

May be better to decide order the controller , some of the PSUs and some of the strip/pixels and get that done , delivered and underway first.
 
Thank you for your reply so quickly . I will look into ray wu . I have measured my house and it was just under 100 m of strip and the rest for arches and mini trees. One more thing what size PSU' is a good size . Thanks
 
Welcome to ACL Fiona!
As mentioned above plenty of helpful info and members to bounce your queries and ideas off of :)
 
Welcome to ACL, you will be surprised with how much you will learn and achieve if you stick at it over the year. Dont let the initial steep learning curve get the better of you and just ask questions when you are not sure.and before you know it you will start to achieve your goals
 
And then there is Acl chat ... a dodgy crowd with occasional wisdom.
Click to expand...
LOL

Welcome Fiona.
When in doubt ask questions. Attend a mini if you can and jump on ACL chat and if you haven't already, download the ACL christmas lights 101 manual.
PCU are dependent on what you are running.
Me - I keep them all the same, that way I can change them out/over whenever I need to. 12 volt 350 Watt.
I am going all 12 volt with my display as there is less voltage resistance / drop problem than experienced with 5V
Any long runs I use heavy wire - 6 mm2. I have been able to find Solar power cable on Ebay at good prices and the cable is double insulated. Red and Black sleeve over the cable with a black sleeve over the red and black.
 
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