New Member with plans

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Carolhwy

New elf
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
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Hello Everyone! My husband and I are excited to join your group and get our plans for Christmas 2015 started out on the right foot. In 2014, we did our biggest so far outdoor Christmas display put to music with an inexpensive blinking to music system. The bug has bitten us and we want to go all out.

Here are our plans for 2015:

A 20 Foot plus topper Mega Tree using a permanent in ground base, using pipe as the center pole and a pulley system to raise and lower. It is our plan to also use this for flag display at other times of the year.

We plan to use 32 strands of 75 to 100 addressable pixels per strand. We are looking at using 2811 or 2801 12 volt IP68 pixels but want to hear what others think and use. After a lot of study we have decided to use polyester webbing (similar to seat belt material) with 12MM ID grommets to fit the pixels into and using D rings to attach the strands.

At this point we are looking at the Pixlite 16 controller with an additional power supply to cover the pixels plus power infusion. If someone has a better idea we would love to hear it.

My big problem is software. Before enough research, I downloaded Vixen 3 to use with X-lights and Nutcracker only to find out that they are not compatible. Have attempted to download Vixen 2 but have been unable. May have to remove Vixen 3 and try again. I really like LSP but again doesn’t work with X-lights at this time. Have tried to download HLS but could not get it to run. May need help here. From what I understand LOR will work with X-lights but has huge files with RGB making them even larger.

Planning to use Raspberry Pi to run Mega Tree so that I keep my computers free. Will have to download our program on to an SD card which in our cold winters runs well.

Since the tree set-up alone is going to be very expensive, it may be all we will be able to do this year but if we have extra money to spend we would like to make arches like Matt Johnson’s, several small trees, and several snowflakes and stars of different shapes and sizes and of course another controller or two.

We look forward to your ideas and suggestions. We would love to hear your experiences.
 
Welcome to ACL Carol. Sounds like you've got a good plan and have done a lot of research already. On the software side, I guess my question would be why do you want to use something besides xlights? It does both sequencing and scheduling. To be honest, I went through some of the same software gymnastics as you and ended up doing everything in xlights. (you can find my longest video below - watch until at least 50 second point to get full effect). Don't get me wrong, xlights is not perfect and there are things I wanted to do that I couldn't (or didn't figure out in time). Now all that being said, both xlights and LSP are due for major upgrades in the future. Whatever you choose or do, you will find plenty of help here. Best of luck.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk-PWiLSAIA
 
Hi Welcome to ACL, looks like your plan is well thought out.


I myself have been using LOR and Xlights. I do the pixels in Xlights using Audacity Labels then export the clipboard of the model and past them into the appropriate channels in the LOR sequence.


This may all change this year as LOR, Xlights and possibly LSP all come out with software re-writes.
Xlights looks promising from this point in the game.


So I would wait until perhaps May befor you have to make a solid decision.


I am also playing with a Raspberry Pi to run my show next year.


-Blu
 
welcome26.gif
 
Welcome to ACL. I created an 18 foot mega tree using the nylon webbing and eyelets. Perhaps I bought the wrong eyelets but they are starting to rust. They still work fine so far but have a nice rust colour on them now. I'm in the process of sourcing some tube similar to matt johnsons arches but it seems near impossible in Australia to get your hands on it locally.
 
Thank you for your advice and video. I didn't realize that I could do it all in X-Lights. Will have to get some time together to figure out just what I am going to do. Again, thank you.
 
Welcome to ACL. Sounds like great plans. The software choice is always a hard one and comes down to personal preference. You can export from the likes of LSP to xlights as I'm trying to learn how to do so I can use a raspberry pi to run my show this year. But as previously mentioned xlights/nutcracker can sequence also. This early in the year you can afford to download and try a couple of the programs to see which works for you.
 
Welcome to ACL!
Software will come down to personal preference to use & possibly also expense. Most of the software offer free trial versions for you to have a play and get hands on before making a final decision. Others like Vixen are free for the full software package so no harm in having it either way. This is what I used in 2014 & will do for 2015.
 
Hello and welcome to ACL

I use LSP (functionally very rich , supports large counts , but has a higher learning curve and is often frustrating to work with and there are a few who ran it on a PI this year. There has been a re-write underway for over a year and as such there have ben no updates.

Whereas Vixen (2-3), xlights etc have had numerous functionality enhancements in the last year ; IMO catching up somewhat on functionality previously provided in LSP. They are also easier to get a hang off (unless transitioning from one to another).
Whatever you select , I am sure will be different for some starting the next year , but there are folks using it here.

Good luck
 
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to ACL

Sounds like a nice plan you have, look forward to videos at the end of the year.
Friendly folks here will be able to give you a hand getting software to work. Just jump into chat and I'm sure you'll get the assistance you require.
 
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