Planning to join the pixel club 2022

[Dmottram1983]

I remember it. It was a great display, good to see you're getting back into it. Truth be told I thought you were going to beat us to the punch pixel wise.

To answer some of your questions:
Still unsure on 5v or 12v so let me know your thoughts on 'your' reasoning.
I'm running a mixture, mainly because I started with 12v strip and bought 12v nodes to go with it. Nowdays I'm progressively moving more to 5v, as its more power efficient. Dense props 5v makes more sense to me, but 12v needs less injection. I don't think I'll move away from strip (at least for now) so they'll likely be a mixture (spots/roof stars/strip). You just need to pay attention to what you're doing when you plug everything in if you go down this path.

Falcon f48 controller
12 x smart boards (might as well just get the 12 now)
Makes sense from a compatibility perspective (v5 might get released next year and you wind up with no access to older boards), but are you realistically going to need 12?

Quite a few power injection and power cut isolator cables (xconnect)
I wire each segment with a 3 pin in and a 3 pin out, and I used the 3-2-3 T pieces to inject power where I need to. I don't 'cut' the positive anywhere in my display; I keep PSU segments together, and if I need more power, I'll run another segment from another data port on the controller (only running -ve and data from the controller).

Let's say 6000 pixels
Cat 5 cables - let's say 100m to start
Keep in mind that Cat5 is not recommended as a Power Injection cable, you'll likely want something a bit bigger. Some use Extension Wire (2 core and earth), some use low voltage garden lighting wire, some use 14/0.20 security wire. (theres a few suggestions in the 101 manual)

Cat 5 cable crimper
Wire strippers
You'll also need:

• Soldering Iron
• Wire crimper's / terminals (for psu insertion etc)
• I would recommend grabbing some bootlace ferrules and a crimper for these (can be found cheap on aliexpress/ebay), makes wire insertion a lot quicker and easier and less prone to loose wire)
• Multimeter for testing voltages, and testing your pigtails / t pieces (always test new stuff from vendors, it can be wrong!)
• Spare fuses etc

Xconnect pigtails
Xconnect extension cables
Personal preference. I thought originally xconnect was for compatibility between vendors but these days they all seem to be able to make each others plugs.

A few 6 port meanwell power supplies
If you're going down the 12v path, consider some preloved HP server power supplies. Popular for crypto mining setups so you can get access to breakout boards. Most meanwells are 350W whereas you can get 1200W server supplies.

Thanks for that info, a great help.

I do miss having my old display.

When I moved 6 years, I was moving to a house off the streesoand no one would see it so I pretty much gave away all my lights with the intention that when I moved again, I would go a pixel display.

I will probably start off with the F16V4 and a few thousand pixels for the first year, just doing roof outline, garage, windows and garden perimeter then once I have that sorted, definitely going a mega tree, although I'm usually of the nature of "go big or go home" so who knows haha

 

[gingrbredman]

I was in the same spot as you about this time last year. I only got one mega tree up this year and a couple animations done for it. This hobby sure does have a steep learning curve, but once you do get a hang of it, expanding seems like it will be a lot easier than starting out for sure!

 

[Dmottram1983]

I was in the same spot as you about this time last year. I only got one mega tree up this year and a couple animations done for it. This hobby sure does have a steep learning curve, but once you do get a hang of it, expanding seems like it will be a lot easier than starting out for sure!

I downloaded xlights and did I rough layout of my intentions but still trying to work out how to work it all. I have plenty of time to play with it and learn. Definitely a steep learning curve that's for sure