This is the start, first year of permanent lights. Dig Quad on the roof lines, Dig2go controllers on each of the windows. All synced to the main controller. WLED is awesome.
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Sorry @madradrakie, I don’t have them drawn out digitally. I did them free-hand directly onto coroplast and cut them out with a box cutter. If it helps, I can try to take a level closeup picture of them after I take it down for the season and send that to you. Maybe you could use that to print out?
All the lit up houses look great everyone! Hopefully it brings lots of joy to family, friends and neighbors. I know mine has.
I don’t have the most amount of lights in my neighborhood (yet), but I definitely have the most unique display around. It’s been fun to build and sometimes frustrating to debug the problems. But it’s all been worth it.
Merry Christmas to all!
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Hello docmattman. Do you maybe have a closeup picture of HollyBerryBells? Could you also give me the spacing between two LEDS so i can adjust the image size and print the picture. Thanks in advance.
Hi @madradrakie. Sorry it’s been so long, but I’m just now realizing that I missed this last post from you. All of my props are still in storage at the moment. Though, that will change soon. I’ll likely start getting everything back out next weekend or so. As soon as I do, I’ll reply back with the photo and led distances you were asking about.
Definitely looking forward to another Christmas season here! Since I missed the opportunity last year due to lack of time, my goal is still to get some lights on the 2nd level of my house. Up until now, I’ve run everything from a single esp32 controller. But I just finished making another one to handle some additions I plan to make this year. Mostly hoping to get 2nd floor window frames and maybe some icicles up there (though that will be a little trickier with the interrupted lines and window gables).
I’m also upgrading my megatree from 10 stands of 47 pixels to 16 strands of 50 pixels. I liked my tree last year, but I wanted to get a few more pixels closer together there so I can do some better scrolling text with it as needed.
If I can meet those goals, I also have a few additional ideas that I’d like to get to at some point (though they won’t all likely get done):
- Something I my garage - Not sure what yet, but it’s a large empty space just asking to be lit with something. The main challenge with that is obviously that garage doors move up and down so I’ll need to figure out something that plays nicely with that.
- North Pole sign - I’d like to add this somewhere. Not sure on a design yet or where to put it, but I like the idea and think it could fit nicely with my other props somewhere.
- Nutcracker/Toy Soldier - Again, no plan for where to put this or a design to build, but I like the idea.
- Train - Eventually I’d like to build a nice big led train. Not sure if I’d use coroplast or metal wire or something else. But I think this would be a nice addition somewhere.
Anyone have any other suggestions, or new additions of your own to share for this year?
Don’t mean to flood the thread but… When is everyone planning to get started putting out their lights (or have you started already)? I think I’ll start getting mine out of storage and start the setup process this weekend. I always have plenty of kid’s activities going on, so not sure how far I’ll get. But hopefully I’ll be able to get them ready to go by Thanksgiving weekend.
I plan to get mine up this week. Supposed to have some nice days towards the end of the week. The plan is to light them the day after Thanksgiving.
I forgot to post earlier. Finally got around to going to the 2nd level of our house with lights this year. I added icicles and window outlines. As usual, I ran out of time to keep doing more, but I’ll keep evolving it next season.
Merry Christmas!
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This is mine for this year perhaps by next year I’ll learn how to have a scrolling text on the garage wall.
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nice setup! how did you make the icicles? With ws2811 pixel strings?
Yes, the are WS2811 12v pixels. I had a lot of j-channel leftover from a recent home renovation. I ended up drilling lots of holes it in and using a LOT of zip ties to make the icicles.
Hello all, it’s me again for another yearly check-in for this year’s holiday lights. I’m working on adding some new LED props for this year, and I’ll post pictures when I have that ready to go. In the meantime, here is the latest project I’ve been working on. I’m a web developer and I’ve been itching to find a way to bridge the gap from my software experience to my recent hardware/LED hobby.
The idea here is to be more of a visually appealing controller for my light show. I currently use xSchedule and the web UI I’ve been building out is able to control my light show. I plan to load up an old Android tablet with my web project in a kiosk mode and have it stationed at the edge of my yard near the street. I’m thinking of building some sort of “podium” with the tablet fixed into it (with a weather-proof cover) and leave it out for neighbors to play with. I live in a small neighborhood and pretty know all my neighbors, so I’m not worried about theft or vandalism. I though it might be a fun way to get the neighbors engaged and all allow them to use the controls a bit. It currently has all the basic feature to load/play playlists, control the media playback, adjust the brightness and volume, set random and repeat modes, etc. I plan to put a small FM radio and speakers into the control center so anyone who happens to be passing by without a car can enjoy the music.
I’ve mostly got the software part figured out. Next step will be to do the hardware build!
(FYI “Gristmas” is not a typo. My street name is “Grist Mill”, so it’s a pun that our neighborhood uses)
Have you looked at Remote Falcon? https://remotefalcon.com/ I think it does exactly what you want.
I make props of Hardpaper from the Recycling center
its a ESP8266 with WS2811 12mm
power is CarBattery over LM2596 1A given to the LED
Going to hijack this thread as we are now moving to the Crimbo celebrations…
Yes it is nice here is anotherone i made 1stripe 5m 60/m and a 32x8 from ali
