WELCOME!!!!!!!

I am back.
Hi all after a lengthy period away of just doing the same thing over and over again and in fact slowly making my display smaller as items broke,, I am now in the right position to enjoy this mad hobby again.
Firstly we moved out of Sydney to a near by regional centre.
Instead of a two story house where ppl could only see the top floor due the land slope, we now have a single story corner block that gradually slow away to the front road.

My good wife even suggest we could add some new displays here, and asked about ppl walking through the front gate around to the side drive way. Kool to have that sort of support.

So this year will be what I can pull of pretty quickly. I know my Beth Star is out as I need to add mounting posts in my roof to mount is up there.
Stay Safe, Stay sane, enjoy like.
Matthew
 
Thanks...... I am a real newbie here. I am an old timer, who until 4 years ago, was still using incandescent strings and wire frame displays, but now have numerous factory produced LED wire frames in my yard.

I just don't understand how to fix them when a[non replaceable bulb] in a string, or several lights go out.

Can someone show me where to get the basics, please ? a lot of my displays have lights out......

I need to know what the components are, and how to replace them.

Thanks in advance.
SANDMAN.1
 
Hello everyone!! It has been a while since I have been here. A lot has changed and I am getting back into the hobby! I gave away all my display lights, controllers, etc when I moved. I am now starting over from scratch and going full pixel! This is going to be a learning curve for me again, and I am looking forward to the challenge. I see some familiar names are still here helping out! That is awesome.

Anyhow, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

Cheers!
Brian
 
Hi Everyone,

Just getting started here. Hoping to outline the house and the garage for the first year, then add on things like animated trees and animated face/mouth/eyes as I get more familiar. I'm in Los Angeles, CA (Redondo Beach) and make my living as an aerospace engineer.

Rob
 
Welcome to the fun. I suggest you go to the AUS Christmas site and read the 101 on pixels. Then start asking questions. Lots of people here with lots of knowledge and experience.
 
Quick introduction for new to pixel lights user. My brother in law runs Vixen and got me started. i have purchased all the lights , built a pwr supply box with controller and setup up some sequences. Still not 100% but getting there . still need assistance with universes/outputs and channels so to speak.

Anyhow look forward to reading all the comments and threads in here and looking forward to some help from the forum users :)
 
Hello from the UK ....

I have been thinking for a few years that I would like to up my game with my Christmas lights and it looks like I have found the right place to start that journey.

completely new to doing this although I have some DIY experience with soldering and PICs .... it is mostly down to understanding what I need and where to get it all from.

Anyway .... I am sure there will be loads of questions as I try to get things sorted in my own mind about how to do this.

Thanks to everyone who contributes!
 
Thank you for the warm welcome.

I have updated my profile - I am based in Birmingham in the west Midlands.

Have got a few ideas and questions so will start a new thread shortly
 
I have tried to start a couple of threads in different areas of the forum and it says that it has posted but then there is no post (even hours later).

Is there a restriction for me to start new threads or does it need to be approved by someone else before it appears? I am only posting here as this seems to be the only place I have been able to make a post
 
Is there a restriction for me to start new threads or does it need to be approved by someone else before it appears?
Click to expand...
Yes, first time posters must wait for approval. It took a long time before my first posts appeared. So be patient.
- Thomas
 
Hey All! Brand new to holiday LED displays. Giving it my first shot this Christmas. Thanks much for paving the way! This site and community are much appreciated.

Cheers!
 
so i have decided to get into the automated lights this year. is there a thread where people list the components they have? rather than buying a premade setup, im curious how much $$$$ i can save by piecing it together myself.
 
Honkylips said:
so i have decided to get into the automated lights this year. is there a thread where people list the components they have? rather than buying a premade setup, im curious how much $$$$ i can save by piecing it together myself.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the madness. There is no way to avoid spending a lot of money in this hobby. You save money by assembling your own props. It is worth the cost to get controllers that work reliably. IMO it is worth the cost to get coro props that need pixels pushed into them. There are two big costs in a mega tree, the pole and mechanism to stand it up and the pixels. The controller cost is a distant third and in line with the PSU cost.
You can try to get cheap on any of these components. However, you will most likely get what you pay for. Reliabilty is worth every penny when it is 10F and you need to cut and solder a replacement pixel into a dead string.
 
Welcome to the hobby. I would tend to agree with what MartinMueller2003 has posted. Whether you build your items or purchase your items (or some of both) depends on several factors including how handy you are with DIY. While there can be some cost savings with some aspects of DIY, one needs to make sure that those cost savings are truly cost savings in the long run. Most items I use in my show were DIY that I had skills at. Electronics though, was not an area that I will say that I excel at. Some controllers I have built and enjoyed every minute of the project. Other controllers I purchased since I felt I lacked the knowledge to order the correct items. What ever you decide for each step of your display, I can say the "reliability and durability" of what you choose for your show will either bring a lot of happiness or great frustration. As Martin mentioned, you don't want to spend a lot of time repairing things when you are in show season.

Here is a link that might help you figure some things out for many aspects of this hobby.

https://www.sjlights.com/links/#pixelvendors
 
Thanks for the welcome! yeah, as far as saving money, i have no thoughts of doing it "cheap" mostly, spend 3k on a pre assembled kit or can i source pieces individually and save 500-1000. i was looking at wow lights dot com

never having done this stuff, maybe im better off buying a premade "kit" and then adding onto it over the years once i get things figured out. im the type that hands on learning is needed. adhd and a forum like this with no backround, i dont even know where to start lol.

this might seem lazy, but anyways. what is a list of needed parts

controller
lights and decor
sequences
cat 5 wire
 
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Honkylips said:
Thanks for the welcome! yeah, as far as saving money, i have no thoughts of doing it "cheap" mostly, spend 3k on a pre assembled kit or can i source pieces individually and save 500-1000. i was looking at wow lights dot com

never having done this stuff, maybe im better off buying a premade "kit" and then adding onto it over the years once i get things figured out. im the type that hands on learning is needed. adhd and a forum like this with no backround, i dont even know where to start lol.

this might seem lazy, but anyways. what is a list of needed parts

controller
lights and decor
sequences
cat 5 wire
Click to expand...

I'd tend to stay away from the (more or less) turnkey packages if you intend to pick-and-choose other pieces (controllers, pixels, PSU's, etc) later on, as they may not be that easy to integrate everything together later on. That said, it's pretty late in the year to get started with anything of any complexity if you want to have a display up for this holiday season.
 
Hello, I'm checking in. I've been here for a minute but I'm not sure I've contributed anything of relevance.

This will be year 2 for me. I ordered too late last year and didn't really get much time to play with all of it. I was able to get my pixel tree up with some basic xlights patterns, but nothing fancy. All together I've got a 16 channel 12V R2R kit running my tree with expansion slots, a 16 channel stupid 5V R2R kit that I'm planning on using to light my house frame, doors, and windows, and an AC smart box that I'm going to try to light up some singing trees with. All of this is stuff I bought last year, most of it I was never really able to play with because I ran out of time.

My resolution this year is to not buy any more smart gear until I use everything I bought last year. So my spending has been more foundational stuff. I sprung for a couple of boxes of permatrack, some PVC for frames for my doors and windows, that sort of thing. I apparently have an unusual eave thing, because the permatrack doesn't work for me out of the box. My eaves are open and my fascia hangs lower than the bracket so the lights wouldn't be visible more than 5 feet from the house. I used this as an excuse and picked up a 3D printer to make some brackets that I mocked up. My daughter cosplays as well, so I'll have other uses for it and it was on my list so I jumped at the chance.

For some reason, I seem to be really struggling in xLights. It's likely most of my questions will be regarding that, although once I'm ready to move on I'll be hoping to build my own box instead of buying ready-to-run stuff and building some props. I'm sure I'll have more questions then!
 
If you are struggling with xLights then try Vixen. Vixen and xLights use different ways of thinking about your show. Both are valid and both are powerful. I struggle with xLights and Vixen just seems to do things "the right way" for me. If Vixen also does not click with you there are a few other free (or paid) sequencers that you might want to try.
 
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