Novice Question - gear required to make leaping arches!!

Tim and Kim

New elf
Joined
Sep 22, 2019
Messages
8
Location
Rankin Park (Newcastle)
I’m wanting to make my own leaping arches for this year!! This is my first foray into pixel lighting.. so it would be helpful to know all the different items to make this arches work!!

The plan is to making 8 (maybe 9) arches, the hose and pixel strips will be 2.5mtrs per arch - going with 70cm high, and the cross bar will be around 1.8mtrs.

So the items I know about:
Air seeder hose for the tubes - will need approx. 20mtrs, so will probably need to buy the 30mtrs and planning on the 32mm tubes (although wouldn’t mind knowing of a cheaper alternative, is there one??)
Pixel strips: WS2812 Rgb strips ip67or68 for the waterproof- is this the best option??
Cross bar: this shouldn’t be to hard a metal pole from Bunnings should cover it...
Legs/feet: I’m thinking on designing something up and get it 3D printed..

But I think where I missing knowledge is on what gear needed to make the pixel lights to work - I’ve read about pigtails and controllers.. definitely a novice when it comes to this.. so any advice on what gear I need to make the pixels too work??

Is there anything else I’m missing on the build side of things??

Any advice would be much appreciated!!
 

Tim and Kim

New elf
Joined
Sep 22, 2019
Messages
8
Location
Rankin Park (Newcastle)
Probably the easy question to ask is what items do you have? Do you have a controller, power supplies, etc?

I have nothing!! So will need to buy everything to make them. This will be our only pixel/addressable items (everything else has store bought lights using their transformers that come with them)
 

OzAz

Senior elf
Global moderator
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
Messages
997
Location
Newcastle
Hi @Tim and Kim

You'll need a pixel controller, power supply, pigtails, wire, an enclosure and a whole lot of miscellaneous hardware.

If you are planning on expanding your display in the future then the current controller of choice is the Falcon controller - you'll need to ask @darylc if has has any left for sale. There are other controllers and numerous other vendors.

Alternatively (especially as there's only a month to go) you may want to just get a small pi based controller like the ones @AAH sells at http://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/ to run your arches, then next year expand to a full size controller.

Many people buy their pixel nodes or strips from Chinese vendors, like Ray, or one of the Zhang guys, they also sell the pigtails - NOTE: with pigtails there's a couple of different type, my preference is what's now called xConnector (same as what holidaycoro sells)

If you haven't already make sure you have a read of the 101 manual.

PS. I used to live in Rankin Park, now in Tingira Heights (it's a long story)
 
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