Long time listener, first time caller...

[pavelostra]

The old saying, long time listener, first time caller suits.

I've been lurking on and off for the past few years but never took the leap to sign up or progress past enjoying other people's displays. Well, I finally took the leap!
My background is network engineering, with a sprinkle of Amateur radio (licensed) and FPV drones, so adding another hobby relating to electronics is just up my ally.
Located in Adelaide.

Past few years I've been running a mixture of solarlights, 750/800 lytworx strings but this year, I figured it's time to level up!!!

So far the plans include about 150m of RGBIC strips (30 or 60 led per m) though I am still pondering if I go 5v or 12v and 150m of 5v 5cm spaced seed lights.
Controller wise, I am leaning towards Falcon for the smart lighting, but I am still figuring out what to run my 10 sets of solar lights with... open to suggestions here? (8 of which are Lytworx Solar Colour Switch Fairy Lights - 800 Pack) yet to work out if it is AC or DC though)

Goal is to frame the house, the front gutters, plus driveway, 1 mega tree plus 5 mini trees, 8 x smaller arches plus 2 mega arches, then infill the bushes with the old unintelligent string lights.

Certainly open to ideas about controlling the old solar lights and if I should go 5v or 12v with the strip lighting?
Suggestions on cost effective options to order the strips? IP65 or IP67

Lastly, what cabling is preferred to power from the PSU to the strip?
My runs will be max 5-10m from PSU to first light if that helps.
Am going to try to keep the PSU within 5m.
I see some people have been using cat5e, some security 4/6 core, some 3 core cable etc?

Anyway, am excited to start on this creative adventure, learn from your experience and maybe one day even be able to help others.

 

[darylc]

Welcome There are a few of us in Adelaide, which part of Adelaide are you in?

Lots of people will encourage you to avoid strip, but if you treat it well it will last in my experience. A lot of 12v strip (eg WS2811) controls 3 lights per pixel. Other types eg WS2815 will give you individual control.

At my old house I ran a 100% 5v strip display on Falcon controllers, at this house I use a lot less strip and branched out into 12v strip and a lot more bullet/seed pixels, still with Falcons.

As to wire, it all depends on the current you need on each line. Cat5e/security cable is pretty thin so can't carry much current. Some people use 6 core security wires and use 3 for gnd, 1 for data 2 for +. Personally I use 0.75mm cable.

 

[pavelostra]

Howdy Darylc, I'm from Chandlers Hill, and yourself?

Good to know re strips, I was planning on running it on conduit, zip tied into place at the joint points, figured that would be the safest way to keep them in place and mostly out of harms way.

Am curious how you are finding the seed pixels in compared to the strips?

0.75mm cable, noted.