Question about the star for the Boscoyo mini-trees, and what output to tie it to...??

S

Stormyblade

Member
So I've got 8 of these Boscoyo mini-trees, along with the star topper, and I'm wondering how to set it up in XLights. I'm thinking that I should fill all 70 nodes with pixels from one output on my controller card, and group the tree with the other trees. Then, I fill the 20 star nodes with pixels and have that come from another output on the controller card, and group all the stars together. My reasoning is that I don't know how to tell XLights to turn on just the tree lights or just the star lights if they are all connected as one string length of 90 pixels, vs. 2 separate outputs of 70 pixels and 20 pixels.

Which way should I do this?

Mini_tree_with_star.jpg
 
Stormyblade said:
So I've got 8 of these Boscoyo mini-trees, along with the star topper, and I'm wondering how to set it up in XLights. I'm thinking that I should fill all 70 nodes with pixels from one output on my controller card, and group the tree with the other trees. Then, I fill the 20 star nodes with pixels and have that come from another output on the controller card, and group all the stars together. My reasoning is that I don't know how to tell XLights to turn on just the tree lights or just the star lights if they are all connected as one string length of 90 pixels, vs. 2 separate outputs of 70 pixels and 20 pixels.

Which way should I do this?

View attachment 37279
Click to expand...

I have the exact same situation and this is how I set it up. I used a string of 90 pixels per tree & star. If you use absolute channel numbering, just tell xlights the tree is (for example) channel 1-70, and the star is 71-90. Your second tree would be 91-160 and your second star would be 161-180 and so on. You can then set up groups with all of your trees and with all of your stars for sequencing. I ran each tree & star from a separate output to avoid having to inject power but you could certainly have more than 1 per output. Hope that helps.
 
With power injection, we have 70 pixels on each leg of a "ground tree" (center of tree is only 4' off the ground), 18' "branches" extend from there. At the end of each branch is a Boscoyo mid tree, another 70 pixels. And on top of that is a 20 pixel-5 point star (of course - 20 pixels). We power inject between the leg and the 90 pixels making up the small trees and star.

Works GREAT. We tell the sequencer that GTLeg1 is from pixels 1-70, MiniTree1 is from pixels 71-140, and MiniStar1 is from pixels 141-160. This is all off of output 1 of a F16V2. Outputs 2 through 12 are the same setup.
GTLeg2 is pixels 161- (you get the picture.)
 
I have 16 of those trees I only use 5 columns of 10 for the tree and another 10 nodes for the star. I have 16 tree models and 16 star models, but it is what works. I have a group for just the trees and group for just the stars and a group that covers both trees and stars. You really do not need 20 nodes in the stars, they look just fine with 10, actually too bright with 20 in my opinion.
 
Thank you all for your inputs. It sounds as if it's not as tought as I was making it out to be, and I just have to pay attention to power (I'm using 12V) so injection shouldn't be an issue and to the channel numbering so I can group stars and trees together or as groups as needed.

I was going to go with just 50 nodes in the mini trees but they are going to be further out in my yard than originally planned and my wife wants to be able to see them from any angle. No problem, dear, all I need is several more strings to buy now, to fill up the tree holes. :huh:
 
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