After some technical issues, I’m finally ready to start planning the installation of the LEDs on my house. (Thanks to @Jinx and @Divsys). I’ve attached a mock up of the soffit lines and roof peaks and plan to place the controller inside the garage at the blue circle. All of my research tells me that location A or B would be the best place to start the power and data lines, but both locations are inaccessible from above due to cathedral ceilings. There is no power at location A but there is power at location B via an outdoor flood light that is switched.
My plan was to start at location X and set up 4 segments like this:
X to A (reversed in WLED), about 47 feet
X to small peak above two windows, about 35 feet
X to larger peak above garage, about 24 feet
X to B, about 96 feet
Is this a reasonable plan and what would you do differently?
I’d appreciate any suggestions before I begin my install.
footnotes:
I plan on using a QuinnLED dig-Quad for the 4 segments but have only been bench testing on a single ESP32.
Using 14 ga wire for power injection, every 100 pixels
Meanwell 29A power supply
At first blush it looks like a reasonable approach.
What density (LED/m) and voltage are you planning on using?
As far as injection think about middle injection rather than ends, it makes for more consistent voltage across the strip and evens out any variations due to power.
I might have tried to come up with a way to source a 2nd power supply in the front corner of the house between X and B, but that’s a minor preference (let’s you use shorter wire for injection points along X->B).
Looks like you’ve got some fun planned, keep us up to date
LED’s are “Rextin WS2811 Pixels Digital Addressable LED String Lights Waterproof RGB Full Color 12mm DC 12V (DC12V 500pcs)”
3 inch spacing so 4 pixels per foot.
Each strand is 50 pixels with extra power injection wires at each end. Since I plan to run the 14 ga power wire parallel to the strings, should I inject at each 50 pixel connection point? I don’t mind the extra work, just trying to do it the smartest way the first time. Thank you again for all your feedback to this community.
If you plan on a “power bus” line along the main string, then it’s pretty simple to tab off for your injection points. I wouldn’t worry about trying to tie a 14AWG to the string, just use a short piece of something smaller and more manageable, say 22AWG-18AWG. As long as it’s short, it won’t make much difference and will be much easier to manage a clean connection.
So, yes you can power at the 50->51 pixels join and then again at the 150->151 join (and so forth).
Happy to pass on what I know, this is a good community, IMHO
With 12v bullet pixels you likely will only need injection every 200 pixels, however if I were doing it I would add the power at every 50 as you already have the wires there for injection. I would think about using something other than those non-waterproof JST connectors that come on the pixels (or at least coat them with some dielectric grease and maybe some marine adhesive heat shrink tubing). I would go with xconnect, or ray-wu waterproof connectors.
