First time DIYer looking for some advice on layout and products.

[bshega]

Hello all,

My wife and I are really into Christmas usually put lots of lights up and last year we did one of those fake light show things that you get at Lowe’s (Orchestra of Lights) and I really want to get into pixel lights and have a music sequence (probably not until next year). I took a picture of my house and drew out what I would like to outline for the first year, second or third I’ll add some trees and other props. I only have a single power outlet on the front of the house but I think it’s positioning is okay to get all the strands.

Would anyone be able to take a stab to see if my outline is okay and maybe where I should run power lines? I was thinking about a single Phantom F16V3, will that be enough? I was thinking of using Chroma Trim since I’ve heard good things about it but their processing time I’m pretty sure is past Christmas, how does this compare to HolidayCoro’s PixelTrim? For pixels I was just going to use 8mm/12mm bullet style 12v.

Any other advice that I might need along the way?

Thanks a ton!
Brandon

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[MartinMueller2003]

Working with pixels is very different than working with the static strings. While the location of your outlet is important, it is the location of your Power Supplies (aka PSUs) that becomes important. A single 15A outlet can supply ~1320 Watts. 1320 / 0.76w (per 12v pixel) = 1736 pixels minus some for the show player and controllers, you get about 1500 pixels. I had a house that looked like yours. You must have an outlet or two in the garage. That increases your available pixel power.

The F16 can drive a bit more than 1000 pixels per port. That means without an expansion board you can have 16000 pixels. I limit my setup to 600 pixels per port so that I can run my show at real motion rates (25ms refresh rate). Max for 25ms is about 800 pixels.

[bshega]

So I calculated (I think with 1" spacing, not sure if that's adequate) that I would have 2400 pixels, with some spares, to outline my house. Is the F16V3 overkill for that? Eventually I'd like to add some snowflakes, trees and other props so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of room for expansion.

[piense]

So I calculated (I think with 1" spacing, not sure if that's adequate) that I would have 2400 pixels, with some spares, to outline my house. Is the F16V3 overkill for that? Eventually I'd like to add some snowflakes, trees and other props so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of room for expansion.

I got the F4V3 for our house this year and it's certainly doing the job with room to grow for the expansion ports but for the cost difference I kinda just wish I had gone with the F16 or F48. The raw capacity of the F48 would be overkill, but I think the structure would be better with the breakout boards than having so much in one box with the F16. I can post a pic of our roof outline when I light it up tonight. It's a bit less than yours, but I'm already scheming for next year. This year's fun was figuring out how to get to some areas of our roof, tried a ladder on rental today that worked out pretty well.

I'm also curious if you're from a southern state with that half circle shutter. Recently moved to Texas from CA and it's funny seeing them on so many houses around here.

[Stormyblade]

1" spacing is VERY crowded/tight -- you may want to back off to 3, 4, 5 or even 6" spacing, depending on how far away from the street your house sits. As an example, my house sits about 20 ft from the street and I went with 4" spacing and I definitely don't want to go closer than that.

That controller is not overkill, but it has 16 outputs and, unless you do some creative stuff with your pixel strings, it will be one string per output (you can combine short string runs with another string as long as your total # doesn't go much past 100 pixels). You might find that you are going to want another controller to split your house in half, or you will be doing long runs of wire. Think about where you want your power supplies and controller and decide if you can go with one controller or if you will need multiple controllers and power supplies. Just to give you another reference, I have about 2500 total pixels and have 3 E682 controllers and 6 12V power supplies due to locations. I probably have too many power supplies but I wanted to have more than enough power than not enough.

[bshega]

I got the F4V3 for our house this year and it's certainly doing the job with room to grow for the expansion ports but for the cost difference I kinda just wish I had gone with the F16 or F48. The raw capacity of the F48 would be overkill, but I think the structure would be better with the breakout boards than having so much in one box with the F16. I can post a pic of our roof outline when I light it up tonight. It's a bit less than yours, but I'm already scheming for next year. This year's fun was figuring out how to get to some areas of our roof, tried a ladder on rental today that worked out pretty well.

I'm also curious if you're from a southern state with that half circle shutter. Recently moved to Texas from CA and it's funny seeing them on so many houses around here.

I’m actually from Northeast Ohio, moved here from Florida 3 years ago. I’m terrified of heights, I’m hoping to be able to rent some sort of cherry picker or something to get up there and avoid a ladder.

[piense]

I’m actually from Northeast Ohio, moved here from Florida 3 years ago. I’m terrified of heights, I’m hoping to be able to rent some sort of cherry picker or something to get up there and avoid a ladder.

I much prefer boom lifts and my old job had one on hand that I drove quite a bit. They weren't horrible to rent from Home Depot in terms of cost but it still would've been $500 a season just to get the lights up and down. I rented a 28' extension ladder this time and it worked well enough so we're planning to buy one now that we know it can do the job. I also put hooks in so next time it should be even easier.

[MartinMueller2003]

1" spacing is VERY crowded/tight -- you may want to back off to 3, 4, 5 or even 6" spacing, depending on how far away from the street your house sits. As an example, my house sits about 20 ft from the street and I went with 4" spacing and I definitely don't want to go closer than that.

That controller is not overkill, but it has 16 outputs and, unless you do some creative stuff with your pixel strings, it will be one string per output (you can combine short string runs with another string as long as your total # doesn't go much past 100 pixels). You might find that you are going to want another controller to split your house in half, or you will be doing long runs of wire. Think about where you want your power supplies and controller and decide if you can go with one controller or if you will need multiple controllers and power supplies. Just to give you another reference, I have about 2500 total pixels and have 3 E682 controllers and 6 12V power supplies due to locations. I probably have too many power supplies but I wanted to have more than enough power than not enough.

You are only limited to 100 pixels if you are afraid to power inject. 600-800 is good for real motion. 1000 pixels in a chain is a good number. FYI: almost none of my pixels get power from the controller.

[bshega]

Alright, thanks. I’ll have to do some research on power injection and how all of that works. Where I can put power supplies in regards to outlets in the house and how I’ll run the wiring.

[bshega]

I think I'm just going to hold off until next year to get everything set up. In the meantime at least for this year though I wanted to try to just get some pixels around the garage door and the front door, I don't think it would be more than 50 pixels. Can I just use a Raspberry Pi to control something like that just to get the lights sequenced to chase each other? Would I need any other supplies besides the pixels and the pi?