The red and white is a marquee effect in xlights that’s applied to a few props on the house during the pre show playlist. I use multiple kulp controllers but I bet wled could do it too.
I've been sitting here racking my brain for like a week, thinking of all sorts of unnecessarily complex solutions... trying to figure out how to mount these stupid pixels without being obtrusive to my soffits and while also allowing me to easily access the strands if any pixels go out. Given that all of the materials I was looking at (mainly wire raceways/ducts) are either PVC or ABS, and that my soffits are aluminum, not once did the thought of magnets cross my mind. I didn't even know they made pre-countersunk magnets. Paint the magnets white, and just leave them in place if I ever sell my house. I doubt anyone would even notice! It's brilliant in its simplicity. Cheers!
The pixels go through the middle of the PVC so any wiring we have to do outside of the pixels (power injection) has to be somewhere else. The power injections just run across the lawn/rocks/wherever and blend in during the nighttime. If you put the video in 4k and watch it I show some of the power injection wires on those props specifically.
I also purchased some Kauf lights cause of you video last year. I think that really add to my show also. so thank you again. I also had one fail funny enough it was a light in a full outdoor fixture. that i tested in the preseason. all of mine made it through show season but I plan to put the Hue Floods and a29 back in when i break the show back down. It is a shame. I did read that none are truly outdoor rated or even supposed to put in the bathroom. did you use some type of JIG to space your PVC outlines for the hole spacing?
Hey Nick, loved your show this year! I just bought some different brighter bulbs that I am going to flash with a firmware and stress test them all year in the off season. They claim a 50% increase in brightness over the Kauf bulbs. I use Jason's jig for drilling. I can drill more holes faster with his jig vs mine I made sfl-designs.com/?store-page=STL-File-1-2-Standard-PVC-Pixel-Drilling-Jig-2-Spacing-p462897088
Where did you buy the magnets? Is the disk on the wall the magnet or steal washer? Are you useing this mounting technique only for the vert corners or other places too? Do you plan on painting the disks on your house?
Magnets were from Amazon - www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C7M4LSBJ/ (make sure to buy the 30# as those are the closest to the same OD as the clips) On the house is the steel washer and I will be painting the steel to match the house color once it warms up outside. I use magnets for all of the roof peaks and gutters (those are all using steel J channel). Makes for a quick and easy put up and take down process. Window frames are not magnets, but will be looking into converting them in the off season.
Magnets were from Amazon - www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C7M4LSBJ/ (make sure to buy the 30# as those are the closest to the same OD as the clips) Clear PVC clip = www.holidaycoro.com/PixelPipe-Clip-for-PVC-and-PixelPipe-Track-p/770.htm Then just take the magnet and clip to your local home depot/lowes/ace hardware and get some counter sunk bolts and nuts that fit.
@@Bigrob444 thanks for the quick response. It looks like 2in pixel spacing. How many magnets do you use for a 50pixel vertical run? Do you have any 50pixel 1/2in PVC pipe runs that are mounted horizontal? If so would you add more magnets? What if those horizontal runs are using a 1in standoff attached to the clip, how many might you use?
@@funfam48502” pixel spacing is correct. On each vertical I am using 2 magnets. Each magnet is roughly 12” in from the end. If your pvc is straight that is more than enough. (Make sure the magnet sits flat on the steel for maximum strength) if the pipe is curvy you could use a third magnet in the middle to keep it straight. On my verticals I use 2 70# magnets to hold up the j channel. These = a.co/d/7wU2lHh Those are screwed to the soffit and painted to match. J channel clips up and is very secure.
I will prefix this by saying I am not an electrical enginier, just a hobbiest. The reason why the power injection works from different power supply is that the voltage drop between the injection points is significant enough that the different power supplies cannot backfeed each other. If you join both power supplies together right at their output to combine their amps that is when it doesn't work as one might expect. An issue that I can see is that if for some reason one of the power supplies stopped providing power to the string the other power supply might start powering the other props that the failed power supply was powering through the prop that was being powered from both supplies. Assuming you have everything fused it probably not cause catastrophic problems as the fuse should blow but it is likely going to be more of a pain to fix. Also it might be that the working power supply is powering a fault with not enough power to blow a fuse but enough to cause something to get very got and catch fire. How likely is it? 🤷♂ I am unwilling to do it myself. While everything is working things tend to be okay, it is when something goes wrong that we find out why it might not be a good idea to do it.
I think the voltage sag on the 5v and resistance of the wire is exactly the reason this works. We did this last year on 1 single prop to test and were successful, this year we did it with 4 props and 4 power supplies with no issues. I will be using this method going forward to simplify power injecting and continue the tests. Every power injection point is fused so no worries there.
It was between Race st & Meridian Ave. Since there’s no description to those that are wondering this was in San Jose , ca., just west of downtown. Good times. I went there frequently when my friend was a bouncer there. Some will remember what building was in front of t before it got torn down. It was an old SEARS. Now they are both gone. AJ’s right down the street is still going sstrong.
@@Bigrob444 ah, I only mention that bc in one of the comments someone posted that it was at the corner of Bascom Ave & Meridian Ave, which don’t cross. So I thought it was the San Jose location.
This was perfect thank you! I was running into a wall, i thought i did everything but was missing sending the UDP out to the master controller during fpp connect. That did the trick, thank you!
Wow.. nice show! I am going on my second year of sequencing and this song came to me today. I am no where near ready to do my own shows yet.... I have to purchase or grab what's on Xlights drive. I am super motivated to sequence to Stevie. LOL.
Lights are amazing, I love the RBLS's on the front tree, did you custom make those yourself or already buy them with the ability to put nodes in? Ive seen some people convert them using a 3d printer but would be nice to buy if they were available, thanks!
I bought the RBL, and then grabbed the STL 3d file off the internet, printed a bunch of them and then modified the RBLs. Really great addition to the lights. I love the RBLs!
Your show is awesome thank you for sharing, I have a question, How did you do your roof props and the 3 presets in the front? Did you custom make those or buy them somewhere? Thanks!
The roof lines, gutters and the windows (and verticals this year) are all drilled by hand. I use a mix of PVC and metal J trim. Any new prop uses magnets to stick onto the house now, which makes tear down and install a few seconds, and the magnets help with alignment over and over again. Roof snowflakes, spinners and presents are all from Boscoyo Studies.
@@Bigrob444 thanks for the reply. I want to switch over from wled to Kulp controllers this year but don’t plan to do an actual light show until next, so was just curious how it all worked out.
With the Kulb boards they have an onboard BeagleBone Black computer. Instead of plugging in an Ethernet cable I have a wifi antenna. Then in FPP (on that controller) I tell it the wifi credentials and it connects automatically.
@@vzach3782 I believe at least some of these are purchased, I believe Little Drummer Boy is from the Magical Light Shows vendor. 40 hours for one song is probably an underestimate btw.
Wow! Simply amazing. Thanks for spending so much time creating this display! Curious how you modeled the small tree in the very front? Really turned out great.
Hi Rob - I am reviewing your video for possible replacement of my garage door floods that point down. They burn floods like crazy so I am investigating changing them out and found your video! How cool if I could add to my xLights show (Falcon controller in the garage already). But it is all wired :(. Thoughts and could I pick your brain?
Hey Big Rob! Awesome video! I love what you did with the Kauf bulbs, but what drew me in was your 3D layout of your home! How did you do that? Any direction would be greatly appreciated!
Hey Larry. Thanks! I used a bunch of free tools/software to get that into xlights. I used hover.to and signed up for a free homeowner account. They have an app that you walk around your house/property and take pictures. Once you have pictures from all angles they will create a free 3d model for you. Email support asking for the 3d obj files, and you can import them into xlights. Once you have your 3d model in xlights I went to Google maps satellite 3d view and found an angle that I used frequently in xlights that closely matched and took a screenshot. Imported that, aligned the 3d model to the screenshot (this took a few tried getting the correct Zoom on Google Maps to match the Xlights size) and then saved everything.
If your existing soffit is metal, why not epoxy the magnets to the J channel ever 2 foot (or on both the house and Jchannel to be stronger) and put the whole 12' metal J channel. Cutting it down into such small pieces I think would make it harder to install not easier.
Hey Rob I watched Kauf's setup video and he was connecting using esp32 boards to communicate to the lights. I also run a Kulp controller as my player in my show. so if i follow these steps in xlights is there no need for a esp32 to talk to the lights the Kulp can handle that?
@nickwc152 - If you have the Kauf bulbs set to WLED/DDP 'bulb effect' then you can use any device you want to control the lights. If you're using Kulp controllers for a Christmas light show, that would be your controller. Configure the bulbs in xlights, configure the kulp controller to push the packets from that controller to the bulbs and things will work. Now if you want to keep your Kauf bulbs up year round and only run effects on the lights for special occasions (Valentines day, July 4th, etc) then you will need an additional controller to do so, since your Kulp controller will be put away. Then you can use a esp32 (I use a $8 nodeMCU from amazon) to pass the effects to the bulb when the Kulp controllers are not up and running. Additionally if you don't care about 'effects' of these bulbs and only want to turn on stationary colors for special days (Valentines day, July 4th) AND you're using Home Assistant. Then you don't need the ESP32 board as Home Assistant can control the color of the bulbs. You'd have to set them one at a time. But very manageable. Hope this helps, happy to answer any further questions.
@@Bigrob444 Thank you so much for all the information. I have a 5 pack of esp 32's coming for a under cabinet job for me to work on in the off season so i can dedicate one of them for the Kauf's outside of the main holiday season I did have a HA instance running but I did not give it a full go and relied on Google home assistant but I know HA is very powerful and customizable I may have to jump back in :). One more Question do you run these lights on your home network or a show network ? Thanks again!
@@dlights9583 I have a full Ubiquiti setup at my house (UDMP, UNVR, 48 Pro POE switch, 8 APs, multiple switches, etc). I have a separate SSID/vlan for my holiday show that is part of my home network. If your home network is setup correctly there is no need for a home/show network. I keep things on different SSID's to keep it more organized in the Ubiquiti Network application. Happy to help 🙂
@@dlights9583 Nice, glad you got them configured. I used a circle prop (4th from the left (wreath, candy cane, channel block, circle). # of strings = 1 Nodes/string = 1 center % = 25 Layers = 1 Then down below in the Appearance section Pixel size = 22 Pixel style = Smooth Then in the Size/Location section ScaleX,Y,Z = 1 Hopefully that makes sense!
The Kulp controller provides power and ground to each strand since they are all hooked up to the controller, and then I inject power and ground at the top of the strands into a 'group'. I'll explain it a bit more: I divide my 16 strings into 2 groups of 8 (1-8 is left, 9-16 is right). Each strand has power and ground coming from it's own port out of the Kulp controller. Each power injection cable is a 4 wire 16 gauge cable. I run 2 wires (red and white) for positive and 2 wires (black and green) for ground. Each group at the top is tied together (1-8 power and ground are soldered together at the top, 9-16 power and ground are soldered together at the top). I run 1 cable the top 'group' down to the power distribution boards. The positives are all soldered together (8 positives from the 8 strings and 2 wires (red and white) from the power injection). The negatives are all soldered together (8 negatives from the 8 strings and 2 wires (black and green) from the power injection). At the controller I split the power injection to 2 ports (5 amps each). Red and Black go to 1 power injection port and white and green for the other. So we're supplying 10 amps of power at the top 'group'. Then I do the same thing for the other 9-16 strings. Sounds complicated, but it's very simple, I was just trying to write everything out in a clear manner. Let me know if you still have questions.
@@Bigrob444 thank you, I did the exact same thing this year but only had 50 pixels per string, 16 strings split into two groups so I only used two ports, then fed both groups with power injection at the bottom on every other. Now I'm thinking of going to 32, and 100 pixels, and would probably inject at the top. With 200 per string I'm assuming you're running at like 30%?
Thank you for putting this out. I have been binge watching behind the scene videos of people setups. question I have been looking for some way to add my homes flood lights. I have Par38 fixters lights I guess those are old school flood lights that stick out that are Phillips Hue bulbs. Do you know if the type you have have a light like that I could purchase and flash? Edit I see you posted the link on amazon I will see if they could fit my home. Thanks again great display I will have to watch some of your show
The par38 bulbs are very similar to the BR30 bulbs I linked. The base is the same, so they should screw right into your flood light fixtures you have. No need to flash if you buy the Kauf bulbs I linked. Just need to configure them which I posted in a different video.
Thank you for taking the time to create this video, greatly appreciated. 🙏 Ordering one of each bulbs to try this out in preparation for this year's show. I can't thank you enough. 🤜🤛
