Beginner's Guide to Christmas Lights - and LED Shows for Every Holiday 

As a software developer by trade, I know how it can sometimes be difficult to explain technical things to someone with limited understanding of technology. DrZzs, you did a fantastic job of breaking geek stuff down for the ordinary viewer. This is an outstanding tutorial, period.

This is the standard all DIY videos should be held to! Thank you so much for the help.

Dude! Thank you SO MUCH for putting this all in one place. You put a LOT of energy into the details, I super respect that. This is a great example of the positive side of the Internet / RU-vid..

This is one of the best tutorials I have ever watched. Thanks man!

I was watching your old video for a month now, learning from the videos you recommended, buying components and making slow progress because I'm not familiar with "arduinos'' , but this video is much , much easier to follow. Thank you from the bottom of my heart ! seriously ! :)

Thank you thank you thank you! I have been thinking through how to accomplish this with my non-existent programming skills and you are making it accessible!

Perfect! Hoping to play with this tonight. Gonna slap it on a NanoLeaf clone I printed a while back as a first try.. excellent timing since it's 11/11 today.

Just finished, it is the easiest lights i have ever done. Everyone should try it. Thankyou to everyone who developed this.

It's 4 years later, and all of this is still accurate. Well, except for the WS2815 strips, they've come down in price and are my go-to for outdoor strips. WLED is rock solid stable, and keeps adding new features. I love this video!

Loved this! I do wish we had a better video showing the installation of the brackets and understanding how to go around corners and whatnot. I'd love that. Can't find a video anywhere on that stuff.

Thanks so much for the time you put into this video. I just bought my first string and I am having a blast with it. So much better than traditional Christmas lights!

This is seriously the best RU-vid how-to I've ever seen. I literally had been following guides for hours trying to get my ESP8266 and WS2812B hooked up, and eventually got it all after jumping through so many hoops. I scrapped all the setup I had done just so I could follow your guide and had it all back up and running in 5 minutes.

I’ve been needing this exact video. I know I could do a project like this but as much as I’ve tried to search and find everything in one place, so far haven’t been able to find it. This helps immensely!

I am in love with this guy already, great work, great tutorial, easy to understand and very cool attitude

Ordered parts last week, arrived today. Up and running in under 30 minutes. This video was excellent! Thank you very much for getting me started in the world of WLED!

Thanks to you and Rob, I now DEFINITELY have that house LED set up you speak about here. You guys lit the fuse.

Thank you Drzzs. I installed my first strip as a test today and it went great. I think I’m now ready to go full scale.

The funny thing is that I already knew all that stuff but I watched your video anyways, I like your style of talking and explaining! Thanks for the guides,keep going! Cheers from Italy

I was in the state of knowing how to play with smaller LEDs strips but didn't know how to scale up to a full house sized show, the way you explain is so reassuring that yes what I was planning is correct.

I just Installed 2 of my WLEDl lights from a scratch after reading your tutorials. Got the parts following your recommendations. The final part will be to use J-channel. Too late for this year's Christmas holiday, Thanka for your detailed instructions. It really helped me. Thank you DrZzs

This was exactly what I needed. Thank you so much. I feel much more smarter now.

Detachable/storeable mounting. I came up with this idea when I "inherited" a 4' x 10' sheet of Coroplast. Coroplast is essentially corrugated cardboard (the same as is used for most packing boxes) except made from a flexible plastic. (I don't know the technical details of the type of plastics used, except they're fairly UV-resistant. The material is widely used in sign-making, for everything from realtor's "for sale" signs to large "screw to a wall" advertising signs. There's a printing process for this stuff that again, I know nothing about). Anyhow, I wound up with a sheet of this stuff, slightly off-white, and 4 ft. (about 120 cm) x 10 ft (about 300 cm. This sat in my garage along with other "good junk", and then the "aha" moment. If cut into strips about 2 cm to 2.5 cm x 300 cm long (width depends on the type of lights used), it can make a very simple, modular, easy to hang and remove mounting base for LED''s. If you're using the adhesive strip LED's, cut strips of Coroplast just a bit wider than the LED backing. If using string LED's, it's easy to drill or poke holes through a strip that's maybe 2 cm wide, spaced according to you LED strings. (A cheapo 20W soldering iron is perfect for this). Coroplast is also really good for mounting small control boards or PSU's to the back side just using double-face tape. As long as it's clean when the tape is applied, it seems to stay on very well. Likewise, if you want to change to a different receiver or control unit, this mounting system makes that very easy. So cut strips lengthwise from your panel (along the line of the corrugations). Then stick on the strip LED's or poke individual LED's through. Now you have a bunch of strips of Coroplast with LED's. You can vary the length of the Coroplast strips depending on where they're to be mounted. Now, using a few pieces of snare wire, put 2-4 wire loops through the top edge of the Coroplast, (typically 1 at each end, and 1 or 2 spaced in between. NOW, you have strips that can be hung on eavestrough edges, fascia, etc. using only a few small wire hooks. At each end of the Coroplast/LED strip, you have an option. #1) if you know exactly where the strips are going, you can simply make hardwired "bridges" using 1" - 2" pieces of flexible, stranded copper wire. Method #2 is to use a set of 2-pin (or 3-pin, if require) connectors. Unless they're "universal" fit, put one "male" connector at one end, and one "female" connector at the other end. Once you hang up the Coroplast strips with the LED's mounted on them, you can just plug the ends together. There are many styles of connectors available in lots of 50 pair or 100 pair, low voltage & low current, that cost very little. A couple of caveats to using this method. 1) you'll need to figure out ahead of time the lengths of strip required. In some locations, a piece only 2 ft or 3 ft long will fit the space. If on a long, straight edge, you might need 2 or 3 stripes, each 8 ft or 10 ft long, to reach from end to end. #2) This idea assumes that you're going to put the same sections of lights in the same location on your house each year. So, it's a really good idea to (a) make a sketch showing each place where strips will be hung, and (b) mark the back side of the strips with a letter or number that corresponds to their location. This will make hanging up each strip go very quickly, and it also means that the connectors at each end of a strip will always match up, male-female. It's possible to just make up a bunch of strips of a couple of standardized lengths, e.g. 3 ft. or 5 ft. or 8 ft., and then just piece them together when hanging them up. Because each Coroplast strip has only 3 or 4 attachment points, this can be a pretty flexible way of doing things. But I've found that "made to measure" length strips for specific locations work really well, and go up very, very quickly. Also, if one section fails, it can easily be repaired or replaced. I originally used this idea for hanging up strips of incandescent Christmas lights. It was far easier to hang up pre-fabricated sections that had only two or three hooks or attachment points, compared to trying to hang the wire using cable hangers or whatever. With a male/female connector pair on each strip, everything plugged together very fast. In some cases, the strips could be joined with short jumpers made from 1 inch - 2 inch pieces of stranded insulated copper wire, and this works just as well with LED's. Aside from ease of installation, the other big advantage is ease of storage. When the strips are taken down, you're left with a bunch of "sticks" that can be bundled up with a couple of velcro wire wrappers (the kind used when coiling and storing long extension cords). This system doesn't "fill the bill" for every part of putting up LED's. But it sure speeds up many parts of the job and, using a "reaching stick" many of the strips can be hung up without a ladder. I know people have done similar things with other kinds of supporting materials. The nice thing about Coroplast is that its a) cheap, b) easy to cut (razor knife) or put holes in (drill/soldering iron), and it's very lightweight but still rigid even for long sections. If you've covered this idea in one of the many other videos you've put up, my apologies for duplicating that. I've had good results using the Coroplast material - it's stood up very well over several years of use, needs only a few hooks per section, and it doesn't cost a bomb - leaving more money to put into newer LED's and "fancy" lighting controllers.

I've been researching ideas for full house lighting with these leds and your vid is perfect, even had a bunch of nodemcu's lying around. Thanks for putting it together.

Thank you for all your videos!

MAN this was an absolute GEM of a DIY lighting guide, i feel way too confident now lol Thanks man you got my sub for sure!

This is SO well done! Thank you so much for putting it together. New years day 2021 and my resolution is to have this set up for halloween.

Thank you for taking the time to do this video. It really helped me as I felt overwhelmed on where to start. I'm going to be testing out some things right away!

Looking forward to the next video!

Dude! This is so awesome! Found your video on Sunday, supplies came today and I am already up and running! Thanks Mucho!

Thank you for this, got everything hooked up last night, only thing I had to do was search and download the drivers for the Node. Now the project of figuring out the best way to mount everything. EDIT: Drilling holes in j-channel is a pain but definitely makes a clean look.

Wired up our NodeMCU board to a prototype board today. Fired it up and it worked like a charm!! Thanks so much. Got a "cherry picker" rented for next Tuesday to finish the outside install. We put addressable LED's on our pinewood derby car programmed with an Arduino pro mini. This was WAY easier and almost had me wishing that we'd gone this route for his car. It would have been super cool for him to change the effect at the derby. Thank You So MUCH for this video!!!

Thanks DrZzs! I have setup my inside tree with the led bulbs and it looks amazing. Your instructions were easy to follow and spot on! I'll be reviewing your other videos for exterior illumination hint for next year's Xmas. Rock on!

wow, thanks for clearly explaining and very well put together vid

Great video! Really, alot of people say they are making easy to follow and halfway through they get impatient and rush things. This vid is VERY informative and so easy to understand... You my friend can definitely teach and train! Looking forward to more of your videos. Thx 😉👍

Dude! You just became my number one source for getting started with my home LED display. Over the last few years I've viewed several other fine sources where the learning curve and (most importantly) price was out of range or required outside research for the inexperienced (me) and underfunded (also me) regular dude (story of my life). You immediately broke down the price and made it easy to start designing in one short video. This video should be considered the template for all who want to help others start designing home LED light displays. I'll definitely be back. I believe your mission to bring this hobby to the masses will be accomplished. Great work!

I am a licensed electrician in NY and work with a lot of standard LED strips (single color) ive been trying to teach myself how to work with the different types of multi color ones and how to advertise for things like you're explaining in this video and this is an amazing video really simplifying the process, well done!

This is gonna be my 2021 project!

Great timing for this video. if we are all smart, We'll put lights up now while the weather isn't full of snow and -15deg (Celsius!)

Thank you for making a video about something that can be so dull (and there are SO many videos that are just... "Bueller, Bueller...") and making it easy to follow and entertaining.

Looking forward to the next video. Thanks DrZzs

I like your presentation, like you said you keep it simple + full easy to understand descriptions, I like that ;)

Such a good video! Earned a new sub from me for sure. I’ve scoured forms, websites, videos on RU-vid, etc learning about this stuff for several years and this is BY FAR the best introduction that I’ve ever found. Simplifies everything in great way but still enough depth so that people can start asking the right questions. It can be daunting for someone that knows nothing about this type of stuff but wants to learn. A+ job. Can’t wait to watch more of your videos.

So many hours of work to get to this level of simplicity. Great job and thank you!

thank you, for taking the time to explain and for the demonstration.

I've been scouring youtube/internet for "permanent holiday lights" this summer. BIG THUMBS UP to Dr.Zzs, WLED, QuinLED, The Hook up. All great info. Got a bunch of material in August and installed it. Was happy with it. Upgraded with Dig-Uno in Sept. and latest WLED version. It just makes me smile. Hours of playing with effect on WLED. WLED continues upgrades and expands the effects. Wizards of LEDs. Dr.Zzs -Thanks for the tutorials. They are info packed, interesting and fun.

My husband sent me your channel as I’ve always wanted to do this.

The quality of this video is amazing, thank you thank you thank you!

Great explanation. I'm excited to try it now.

Thanks so much for breaking it down into a manageable chunk. I’ve loved all the videos people have done (eg TheHookUp) but feel I need to take notes while watching the videos. This makes it MUCH easier to just jump in and do it and then get more specialized afterward. And thank you for making it an edited version. I know it’s much more time consuming than the live streams but it makes it so much easier to follow along.

Im SO doing this, thanks for the awesome video and clear explanations, you earned a subscriber no doubt from me

Excellent explanation and directions! I learned a lot, Thanks!

Thank you! I’m going to make the change soon and your videos help so much!!!

I need something like this for my house

A tip for anyone new getting into this, like me from last year. I highly recommend you stay away from the strips, unless you have a very steady hand and experience with soldering, as the soder pads are very tiny and close to each other. It's a massive headache, and honestly it was really hard to stay motivated because of how frustrating it was. It can be done, however be prepared to be extremely patient

Wow! Mind blown! You really know your stuff and explain it brilliantly! Thanks again for all the excellent info! I can’t wait to make our new deck look awesome this fall!

Thanks for the great videos!!! Last Christmas I decided I was going to advance beyond basic lights for the house and yard. After watching hours of videos and taking notes, this video helped me decide a good starting point was to go with NodeMCUs and xLights. My first batch of NodeMCUs and a string of pixels arrived yesterday. Tonight I sat down to get them working. They're now up and running with WLED and my daughters are both laying claim to the pixels for decorating their rooms. They are also telling me all the things they want in the yard for Halloween and Christmas. Heading to part two to get xLights talking to the NodeMCU...

First off thank you for this video! I watched the first and almost started to do my own but held off. Then after this one I took the plunge! You made it so easy! I went with a custom setup of individual led lights plugged together. I am having one issue: If I plug all 100 lights in (each light has 3 leds) everything works. If I put in a 3 wire extension in have flickers when changing colors. If I put it at the start or end issues start after the extension. I do solder the connections so that is not it. Could it be the gauge of the wire or quality of the wire? I want to run a 30ft 3 wire cable from power supply to first light and also have a 10ft and 5 ft cable that will need to be between some of them. I want to make sure that would solve the issue since it will be more $$$$. I have learned a lot of what to do and what not to do on this setup. Thanks again!

Can you recommend waterproof strips I’m having a tough time figuring out the right ones for individual color changing?

Great video, I now have over 1500 LED's and 3 controllers! Thank you for putting this together, was a great foundation to my project.

I already had my Home Assistant stuff setup, but wanted to give WLED a try. It was super easy to setup, anyone can do it. I switched over to it, and now going to integrate into my HA setup. It's super easy, my kids can even change the lights. Thanks Doc!

RIP people who can't hang christmas lights or have a computer or fingers.

I'm just going to throw in a tip for anyone watching, if you want something very simple to use and easy to set up, Twinkly makes app controlled strings of 150 to 400 adressable 5mm RGB LEDs.. They're powered by a small WiFi controller, so you just scan your house with your phone camera in the app to adress all the LEDs in the correct layout. The controllers talk to each other, so you can put together several strings with no problem. Then you can create effects as if your house was a display in its own, going from one corner to the other, across several strings. They're around $80 for 150 lights or 12 meters, and $120 for 250 lights or 20 meters. I've been using WS2811 strings and WS2812B strips powered by Arduinos for years, but I'm going to try these out this year since they're a lot more simple to control across several strings, and makes it easier to create a uniform effect across the whole house. I'm going to try the NodeMCU and experiment with it, so thanks for the introduction to it! I haven't settled on what to use for this years Christmas light display, but I'm going to try different setups.

My man!!!!! Perfect video brotha thank you for the understanding and info!!

Brilliant video......really easy to follow....thank you.

Having trouble connecting to the app my WLED doesn’t show up when I try to add it.

at 3:32 you promised to update the video description if a certain LED strip fell off of your house. I'm curious!

Thanks DrZzs! I've been wondering how to do this cheaply. I'll definitely look at your other related videos, and possibly other videos by you as well

Thank you so much for explaining this so well.

So did they ever fall off of the house???

My wife just looked at me like this -_- and walked away. I don't think she likes your channel, but you just got a sub from me! =D

Good video DrZ. I am doing 3 archways on my driveway with led strings and pvc pipe, 3 strands apiece with a total of 450 lights. But a wire stripping tip, do not remove the insulation all the way, try and leave it on the wires. then spin the free piece of insulation in your fingers, to twist the wires together. The insulation will slide off and the wire will have a smooth uniform twist.

Awesome, just starting my little adventure into setting this sort of thing up on my house. This was very helpful.

I was waiting for you to mention a logic shifter for the 3.3v signal of the nodemcu to 5v normally required for the led strip signal. Was this a skip on purpose or a slip?

Help! I just got my nodes and lights and I’ve connected my node to both my Mac and pc and it won’t pop up on the serial port section on the epshome flasher. Is there something I’m doing wrong?

wow j'adore ca !! merci

This is one of your greatest hits. Love it.

Holy shit dude, when it was still October, there was alot of Christmas stuff on sale in America, like seriously man. 😂 (I'm from America.)

If someone is really serious about this a falcon controller (www.pixelcontroller.com) and xlights is the way to go

You are great!! Thank you for your time. So glad to have found this, and so glad you’re so good at making videos, well done thanks

Wow, that was easy! Thanks for the great walkthrough 👍

i only have to say for this : Awesome , you are like a yoda but for hassio

Simple and easy to understand. Tanx

Made it so simple,thanks!

Very cool!

You are my hero. I have been searching everywhere to learn how to do this. Could never find a clear explanation how to do this. Now just need to know how to protect the power supplies from the weather.

Thank you finally someone doing it right, how to show others how to use these. Thank you

OK deep breath......after a year or so watching as many videos on this as possible. I've decided to do it this way. So here goes..... Thank you for all the videos.

Great tutorial! Thanks!

This is a fantastic video. Answers all of my question/concerns. Thanks so much.

I've been looking for a simple way to control addressable LEDs for quite a while and this is perfect for my needs great video

Bless you!

Thank you for the tutorial sir. Very much appreciated!

VERY well done! I don't know if I would go this route but I definitely understood what you were describing. Thanks!

Its' fun to quickly scroll thru the video and see the wardrobe changes.

This is one of the best, most thoroughly, and easily understandable DIY into to LEDs nd controllers that I've ever seen. Thank you!

Perfect video !!

Loving the videos, this is so much easier than the old video, I stumbles across these videos last week, I am planning to get this set up before xmas, Big thanks from the UK

This was great. I had a quote from a lighting company of $14,000.00 to put permanent, programmable lights on our house. Holy cow! We are going to try and simplify our system with inexpensive lights and learn as we go! Thanks for the simple information!

A finished my lower level roof line following this guide. 600 leds, 2812b strips, 5v. Running the lights on a cell phone charger. Waiting for my digiquad to inject power and replace my nodemcu. Thank you for the easy to follow tutorial

Thank you for this new user friendly version. I jumped on board back when you did this with home assistant and got it to work but was always finding bugs in the way I coded things. It has been a frustration and I am excited to try something new with the same hardware! Thanks again!