🎄 VLOG update - How Y'all Doin? (2021) 🎄 

Always seems to come down much faster. 😂

Thanks!

Thanks! We are excited about it.

Thanks!

👍Thanks!

😂

Thanks! A lot going on around here. lol

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Haha. Sorry to hear that. Yes, we may still have people without water due to busted pipes. It was a concern of ours.

Thanks! Yeah, it's been 30-40 years since we've had this kind of cold. Total chaos.

Yeah, I thought about that as being a bonus if the other end was hit by lightening. Extra Ethernet distance was my main driver for this and I just wanted to get a better understanding of how it worked.

Cool. Glad to hear the long-range stuff worked out well. Still hunting for our perfect spot. :)

Oh man! Sorry to hear that. I hear there are still people without water or have busted pipes.

Thanks!

Welcome and thanks! Yeah, you don't have to dump your current investment. Just add pixels each year.

LOL. It's a longer-term project than originally planned. Still doing things, but added a knee surgery to the pile. 😂

WOW! I believe we had similar out-of-state assistance. I'm glad they do what they do.

@@CanispaterChristmas definitely! They were great! My neighbors across the street had their line ripped off their house. We brought snacks and drinks out to them while they hung a new line up.

No. There’s a few options for that depending on your skills & willingness to ask questions from the community. A pixelStick might be able to drive those which is relatively inexpensive and may do what you want. You can go up from there if you want them part of a show.

Not sure I’ve figured that out yet, but I’ll post a video when I do. 😂

@@CanispaterChristmas Cool thanks. Hey when you do can you also redo the info video. You showed ur windows took lets say 400 pixels ur mega tree too 1200 pixels. You did that with ur display and it was helpful on seeing how much you have for your show and helped me buy 3000 pixels. Keep up the awesomeness.

Greetings! Great to hear!

Haha! Greetings! Been playing too much Star Trek Fleet Command! 😂

All good. Jobby job has been keeping me quite busy, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel so hoping to get back to making videos soon.😂

Me too! Yeah, we're looking forward to it.

Cool. Let me know how that goes. I haven't moved into the 3D print world yet.

@@CanispaterChristmas will do good sir. Are you attending the virtual conference that is coming up?

@@Aion_00 Yes. I believe I will be doing a show-and-tell on my tune-to sign.

@@CanispaterChristmas Awesome. I may take the day off to make sure I don't miss anything.

U should have posted a video so we can see ur display. 😊

Thanks! I hope to attend Expo this year. We'll see if I can get on a plane. 😂

Thanks! Are these kinda ubiquitous or are there differences between these and "pro" versions? I've seen where they are multiplexing signals to get more throughput, but I don't need that. Just might want a longer Ethernet connection than 328-feet.

@@CanispaterChristmas they are pretty much a commodity item. are you going to get better performance or lifespan out of a cisco? probably not.

Good to know. Thanks!

@@CanispaterChristmas To my knowledge every device would be no different than the other. It's sort of like a usb is a usb cable between mac and pc. The part that matters is the quality. In order to operate they still need to adhere to ieee standards so you're probably paying more for the name than anything. Tp-link in my opinion are leaps and bounds to reliability based on quality. Far superior than netgear, but lower than cisco. The other part of the puzzle is the compatibility to sfps or gbics. Some work with all vendors, others have issues with other vendors. Case in point:. Aruba Networks, an HP Enterprise wireless solution...the sfps/gbics work great with finisar and another vendor (name escapes me atm), not so much with cisco and it's not understood why. Single mode vs Multimode is huge as well. Single mode is used for longer runs because the core of the fiber is thinner leading to smaller reflection angles within the core. As for pro vs other... No clue other than higher quality? For circuits from isp's, I've seen various brands used. Even as far as netgear... Which I may have choked at a little bit. Lol. But from a functionality standpoint, if you're just looking at basic functionality, I personally think you'll be fine with the tp-link or other brand. What's remaining now is 10gig vs 1 gig...or if u need a managed converter. Those decisions are based on whether u have that much traffic being generated and or if you want to be able to log into the converter to control things or see stats. For light controllers and displays, I don't think you'll need anything larger than 1 gig unless you're doing something like world of lights. Just my opinion... Hope it helps

Awesome! Thanks!

She tells me that every day. 😂

There is a great xEssentials video/discussion about the problem. If you're in the US, check out wiredwatts.com for your pixel needs.

How can pixels catch fire if they are only 12v?

@@CanispaterChristmas I'm in the land down under so don't really have too many options

OK. Seemed to be a bad production run in China. Check in with the auschristmaslighting folks.

Regulators can overheat.

Awesome & welcome! Let me know if you have questions.

@@CanispaterChristmas Do you think you could do a video explaining universes, pixels, nodes, strings and channels? It is pretty confusing for a newbie. On the Falcon F16V3 I know each pixel port can handle 1024 pixels using 3072 channels, but I really do not know how universes come into play. I am sure I am not the only one.

Sure! I’ll put something together.

@@artcate4689 Art if you are using x-lights just let x-lights configure it for you so much simpler and sounds like you have a falcon controller x-lights supports that you just download to the controller and all is golden

@@mklabunde thanks for the info, that is actually what I did. I know a lot more since I asked Jeff about making a video for this.

Trying to stay outside city limits basically. Waco to SA, College Station to Kerrville-ish. Of course, it also has to meet with Cathy's and my banker's approval. 😂

@@CanispaterChristmas Take off that silly hat you wear and get thyself to College Station, TX! Gig Em

@@aggiejames3679 Haha!

It will be worth it. 😂

LOL. Well, no new house just yet so I don't have a lighting plan, but I may be able to put "something" out there. Just had knee surgery so recovering from that currently. I'd like to at least get something going to see how the cows react. Their acceptance is kinda important. 😂

Reminds me of an advertisement. "When's the last time you posted a video - that's too long." 😂

Might be a question for the Facebook group. You click the custom model button, draw an area, wait a few seconds and the window should open with options to choose which model it is. Can't remember which all is included now. Pick the model from the list and it should populate the area you drew earlier. How are you going about this?

Thanks! Not a celebrity, but I have subscribers in several countries so maybe world-famous. 😂

You are one of the coolest people ever!

Haha. Thanks!

Haha. All good. Jobby job is sucking up my spare time atm, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Yeah, saving off the mappings is needed. You'll have to re-create the mapping. Not a huge deal, but might mess up something you liked if you map it to something else.

And you'll need to add the new props to your sequence. Right-click where you see your props, choose "Edit Display Elements" then move the new props into the sequence.

Maybe try re-creating the mapping first on a new sequence (same as the old one) then add the new props to the old sequence with the new mapping. Piece of cake right? 😂

@@CanispaterChristmas thank you Sir. I have added all new Props, and will try your steps. I have been adding them one at a time. BTW: hope the Book App is doing well. Kubernetes I would assume? Do you use Scrum or Kanban?

Awesome! Oh, exciting things on the Book app. Not completely sure what the back-end stack is, but I think they're using Kubernetes for something. Also, not real strict on process, but mostly resembles scrum.

Thanks! FPP runs fine. All it's really doing is playing a data file out to the network. Use xLights to create the sequence and FPP plays it. If you saturate the network (not likely for residential stuff) you can run FPP remotes to segment things further. I've not had to do that.

Thanks! We were extremely fortunate, but others nearby were not. I'm hoping to plug that hole soon. :)

The items are listed in the description. I wasn't transferring E1.31 across the link so can't speak to that, but I can give it a try. I was just using the controller's web interface over fiber. The receivers are RS-485 or something like it so wouldn't think they'd work either.

Thanks! I noticed that problem on a low-resolution monitor. It's in a toolbar that may be off the screen. If you move the entire xlights window to the left (off your screen), the toolbar should appear and you can move it to a better location, then put the window back in the right place on your screen.

Thanks Jeff, I found the button and moved it. Have a good one.

I like your thinking. 👍

I suppose it depends on what you're hanging, but I use the strips from Boscoyo for a lot of things and free-standing props. I've seen some clips people have "printed", but there's not really a single solution (I've drilled a lot of holes). You might ask around in the Facebook group to see what people are using.

@@CanispaterChristmas yes sir I’m using Boscoyo strips my parents just don’t want me to drill into the house. As a 14 year old 2 years ago I enjoyed going to see the dancing lights you drive trough and it was amazing! Last year I decided that I wanted to do them. I found your videos and they taught me everything so I just wanted to Thank you for one answering my question and two for teaching me about this hobby I hope to continue and teach other people about!

Awesome! Glad the videos helped! Let me know if you find a solution.

Cool! Any problems with diesel and cold weather or is it just "kinda-diesel" that has a problem? (I forget what it's called).

@@CanispaterChristmas "Kinda-diesel"?? I kinda don't know what that is...lol...No, and it would get cold cold cold there, plus I learned many tricks as a mechanic, as well as spending 367 long cold days at the South Pole in Antarctica where we hit 103 below zero. Up north, I had a battery heater, and a block heater for the diesel. I would start it every week and run it for an hour and then in the summer do the same but only once a month. This was just to exercise the engine, cook off any moisture, keep mice from making a home in the air cleaner, and to excite the alternator as well. Some times if you do not run a larger gen set often, like for years, the alternator may not start producing electricity and now you need to "FLASH IT" to get it going and in an emergency, you just want power and not screw around with it, because of the lack of maintenance and exercising it. Seriously, check your air cleaner before starting so you don't suck a mouse nest into the engine....it's a MESS when you do. When I knew a storm was on the way, I just plugged the heaters in on the gen set, and warmed everything up, and then "IF" the power went out, it was easy to start. They're pretty easy to start anyway, but hey, a warm engine doesn't mind a load, like a cold engine does. NEVER put a load on a cold engine. I always let my diesels run until warm....usually 15 minutes or so before I EVER put a load on the,. and then I let them run without a load for 5 minutes to cool off and get as much heat out of the engine as possible before shutting it down when the power came back on. If all else fails, I have an LP heater that I can start up and let it run close to the engine and oil pan, and warm everything up, and that always works. Before the LP heater, I used my Weber grill, and filled it with charcoal and fired it up and that warmed up the building nicely...well nice enough to start a diesel engine. NEVER buy a diesel with a plastic air cleaner housing either. I've seen then crack in the cold weather when the engine is running and vibrating. Plus with plastic, you can't use the next trick. If it's really REALLY cold, remove the air filter, and in the STEEL housing and intake manifold, spray in some starting fluid, and light it on fire. Let it burn and heat up the manifold. Do this a couple times, and then try to start it. Now the engine is sucking in warmer air and not freezing cold air. I've even cranked the engine over while the fire is burning when it was REALLY cold, just to heat up the cylinders some. It doesn't hurt a thing, but do it in front of some sheeple crybabies and watch them panic....it's always a good chuckle. I like to act really mad while trying to start it, and spray starting fluid in the engine, and say I'll burn this thing up...lol Whatever you do, do NOT spray starting fluid into a diesel and then try starting it. That's bad. The fuel, is another thing I like. It is VERY stable and all but impossible for it to start a fire, in fact when it's in liquid form, you just can not get it to burn with a match. It also stores VERY well and I mean years and years when the fuel tank is air tight. I treat ALL my fuel with a product called PRI-D or G. The "D" is for diesel, and the "G" is for gasoline. This product is what the gooberment uses to treat longer term strategic fuel reserves for the military. One treatment will last 10 years or so, and then you retreat it for another 10 years. I actually opened up a couple tanks to check my stored emergency fuel 16 years after I treated it and sealed it up, and it was still the same pink as the day I bought it, but I did add in more PRI-D treatment since I had them opened. One QUART, 32 ounces, will treat 500 to 520 gallons of diesel. A little goes a long way. You can store fuel forever. When I moved from Wisconsin, I gave my friend about 1,500 gallons of diesel that I bought back in the early 90's, and I looked at my records, and I paid $0.63 a gallon for it back then. So it was pretty old fuel. You can also get PRI products for cold weather, but if you have your fuel tank inside with the gen set, and you have a small LP heater, the diesel will flow like water and never gel. At least not until it gets well below zero and that's just not reality in Texas, and I've been in some REALLY cold areas, so if it was some thing to really worry about, I'd tell you, but for "ME", it's a non issue, cause even though it was cold-ish in Texas a few weeks ago, it was not COLD COLD to where a diesel would have trouble starting. I'm more concerned with storms and the power going out, than I am with cold weather, but either way I'm ready. Also, buy FARM or OFF ROAD diesel and you do not have to pay the high road tax. Back in Wisconsin, I think that was almost $0.30 a gallon I saved and for a 1000 gallons that $300 in my pocket. I would not run anything but #2 fuel as it has more oil in it and you need that for the injector pump to have a long life. Another thing I did, was I had custom pipes made for it at a muffler shop, so I could put a truck muffler on it and now it runs as quiet as any vehicle, and not like a dang lawn mower screaming all day and night. Finally, get a LONG stroke diesel that runs at 1800 RPM and NOT those 3600 RPM engines. They do NOT last and you'll run the guts out of them. The long stroke slow runners have so much power and will last literally forever. Put it in your will. Some thing nice to have, is a separate circuit that's BEFORE the gen set with a small night light plugged in and turned on, so when the power comes back on, you'll know because now the light is on now, and you don't have to keep guessing or flipping the transfer switch and checking for power when out in the country, and no one is around to see if they have lights on. What ever you decide to get, hard wire it right into your breaker panel with a transfer switch, and you can run the whole house just like normal, to include deep well pumps, water heaters, electric driers, and AC, all of which require 220 vac. Now everyone is happy, and that's key, but what the hell do I know...lol

Bio-diesel is what I was calling "kinda-diesel" which I understand turns to gel in cold weather. Good to know the real stuff doesn't have that problem. I already knew about getting a lower RPM genny, but I can't decide between diesel or propane as we'll likely have other propane needs for the house. I know propane is less energy dense than diesel so would need more for the same output and having two fuels wouldn't be a big issue on land. It's still early in the process and I have plenty of time to figure it out. Any brand preferences?

@@CanispaterChristmas OOOOH, I thought you were talking about the engine, not the fuel. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that stuff when it comes to my family and emergencies. I do know a guy up north who had a Ford Ranger with a diesel and he drove like 1,300 miles on bio-diesel that he made himself. He loves it, but he still said he has to start his truck with regular diesel, and then switch over as the engine warms up. Plus he has some sort of heater that runs off the cooling system, just like a cab heater, and the bio-diesel runs through that heater to warm it up....A LOT so it burns much more completely. He does get great mileage with it though, and it smells like french fries once it's set up correctly. I'm not a propane fan at all. I just hate having to rely on a special truck to bring me fuel, and in the cold, it can freeze up for sure. Plus it runs at 3600 RPM again, and heavy duty long term engines are the slow runners, that run half as fast and last twice as long. Natural gas...no way. Again, I'm relying on way too much infrastructure to remain operational for me to have power, and it kinda defeats "MY" purpose anyway. For a home HEAVY DUTY gen set that will always be around and you can get parts for, but still affordable for the normal man, a Perkins 10 or the 21kWh. They make a great engine that will last and last, and are VERY good on fuel. You just have to figure out what kind of loads you'll be seeing and do the math, and add at least 10% to that figure. Here's a website that has a lot of good info on each gen set and I really like how they lay it out for you, and they include fuel consumption at different loads. I would not buy from them, but they have great info and very well laid out for comparing a lot of different gen sets. www.centralmainediesel.com/perkins-generators.asp

@@CanispaterChristmas Oh and I forget. My home insurance went down with a diesel gen set since we didn't have to worry about pipes freezing, food going bad and what not, BUT with a gasoline gen set, they were VERY interested in how much gas was being stored, and how close to the home it would be. Some thing else to consider, and check with your insurance company.

Not this year. Too much going on. 😀

You mean this one? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EcAXycWNSxM.html There are two input terminals on the F16. Each one handles half of the board. V2 also powers the board.

@@CanispaterChristmas Hi Jeff, no I though you did a video where you actually connected 2 power supply's to 1 f16 controller. Maybe I am incorrect on this.

@@ducebigalow8834 I always connect 2 power supplies to an F16. One to V1 and the other to V2. You mean 2 power supplies and one string? Cut the positive between the two.

@@CanispaterChristmas yah I think that's it 😀

If you you simply need more power per side of your board (assuming you use a Falcon), I would recommend the used HP server power supplies. They supply a clean - constant 12V and are available in 750W and 900W models for about $30 each on ebay. Some of the kits include the breakout board. I also see some 750W units on ebay for less.

Haha. Many have asked so I included it in the video. I'll have to work on that. 😂

I haven't ordered yet. I also don't have secret access. 😂 Have you tried contacting James on FB?

Like magic, I get an email from them about 1 hour ago. My order will ship next week. This was my first order with them, so I didn't know what to expect or if 4 weeks and no info was normal for them. I have ordered from Wired Watts on a Monday and received the order by Friday. Didn't figure you had secret access, just some insight on their turnaround times. Thanks!

LOL! They may have been away at a gathering/convention of some sort and just now working the queue.

I'm sure I could set it up on near the road. 😂

Yes. I'll respond in three years. 😂😍

Falcon controller

That is my understanding. I haven't seen anything yet tho.

I believe that's closer than you think! 😂

Understood. 😂