I tried to get this video out yesterday for Halloween, but it didn't finish uploading until 11:30 last night, and I didn't want to post a video super late. So that's why it's coming out today 😂
My 2023 Halloween display consist of 4 fog machines, a 1100W speaker system, a projector, about 25 atmospheric and normal lights, lots of props, and 8 DMX lights. It uses about 60 amps in total. We use 3-20 amp circuits for all the things in the display and 2-15 amp circuits for the DMX controller, DMX transmitter, the music player, the projector and other miscellaneous things that need power. It has been growing every year and we run it for 2 weeks.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "with the cap". Are you talking about some of the Pi cap products that exist that allow you to run lights off it? Or are you referring to the pixel controller as the cap?
you have F16V and you are using only four ports ? I saw your other video where you ended up sending data more than 250 feet with data booster. May I know why you are using smart controller board rather using your remaining ports in F16V with data booster.
The reason why I'm doing that is because it's a more reliable and cheaper set up. Running cables for long distances, even with data boosters, can cause the lights to sometimes act funny. Plus, it can get really expensive running tons of cables across my yard to my props. For example, my mega tree in my Christmas display. The tree uses 7 pixel ports, plus 7 power injections. It is a lot easier to run 1 ethernet cable and 1 power extension cord to a box under the tree with smart receivers, rather than run 7 data wires and 7 power injection wires to the tree from the main controller. That's the reason why most of the props have smart receivers going to them.
No, I run it at 30% brightness. 100% takes way too much power and it is very very bright. I used to run it at 40% until I got over 3,000 pixels, then even 40% was super bright.
Hi! I picked up some 12v pixels. I want to play with it during off season to learn pixels. What pieces do I need to just get the power to play with it. I am building a list.
To make pixels work, you'll need a power supply and a pixel controller. For a power supply, I'd recommend getting a Meanwell LRS-350 12 volt power supply. Most people in the hobby use these and the enclosure boxes for pixel controllers are made to fit this power supply. For a pixel controller, there are lots of brands like Falcon, Sandevices, Kulp boards, Hason Electronics, and more. I always recommend to everyone Falcon controllers just because they are my favorite and have lots of features, however, they do come at a higher cost. The newest Falcon F16v5 controller cost $260, but can controller over 30,000 pixels. There will be some more parts you'll need to run a full show, but this is enough to get some lights blinking.
@@How2Pixel Perfect. Yeah I ordered just 100 pixels to play with. I want to tinker with it and get a better understanding. I was trying to compile a list of things needed to get the lights going. Any specific controller a bit easier to understand over the other? Or are they all about the same?
I'd say they are all about the same, none of them are easy enough to set up without some prior knowledge about the controller. I'd recommend just get a controller that comes prebuilt, because some you have to assemble and solder yourself. As for pixel voltage, I always recommend 12 volts. They are slightly more expensive than 5 volts, but you can have longer strands with less power injection. The only time I might recommend 5 volts is if you have a really dense prop that's easy to power inject. But yeah, I'd say 12 volts. Hope this helps!
I'm really sorry but I do not offer consulting. However, if you need help or having trouble with something, just leave a comment on any video and I can try to help you!
Thanks for the quick response...... I am looking to set up a display on a vehicle moving down the road and would love some help designing it and getting it to work...@@How2Pixel
Ooh that sounds like an interesting project! I've never done something like this before, but I don't think it would be that hard to set up. You'd just need to find a way to get power for the controller and lights. I don't know a whole ton about cars but maybe you could use a generator or get power from the battery. You can also run your Raspberry Pi in hotspot mode to be able to connect to FPP to make changes and start the lights. How much do you know about pixel lights?
@@How2Pixel Inhave no issues with power since i’ve done this with regular lights the past several years…… 👍 The pixel game is new to me but i am a very quick learner
Quick question. This year I did my whole house in permatrack, just over 300’. It was a big project so I didn’t want to add all the props and megatree this year. Can I go into my layout, add all the props I want to add, and actually start sequencing, or importing a sequence to work with the props I want to use, even if I don’t have those props,lights, controllers yet. If so might be a good video idea for the person wanting to learn xlights and work on layout ideas prior to buying everything. I ask because I would like to use this winter to work on this stuff before next season. Thanks
This is definitely possible and something I often do. I just don't have a controller listed for each prop that doesn't physically exist. However, it may be worth noting that adding props that don't have a controller may make FPP confused and could cause problems.
@@PKCubed would it mess things up if you are doing the “test” layout in a completely different show folder in xlights? My plan is to have my house lights in my main show folder and then do a different layout with all my planned props on a separate show folder.
@@mcb0b1 That's perfectly fine, but you will have to be a little bit careful about transferring sequences from the test show to the actual show because it will ask you to either import the sequence or remove the models that you don't have on import (This will not affect the original sequence).
The raspberry pies should both be plugged in to your Spare outlet and should not be plugged into a timer. They should be on all the time because it's, they shouldn't be turned on and off. It's hard on the on the storage devices I know. I've had to replace two or three storage devices They should be shut down like a computer
Every night when the show ends I have a shutdown script run in the playlist on FPP so I don't just cut power. Would cutting the power maybe 20 seconds after the script runs still cause problems?
@@How2Pixel I would extend to about 1 minute after the shutdown script to power off the Pi's. But this is the best way to shut them down. Nice work BTW
I forgot to mention that, I knew I'd forget something! The network switch that the Pi and controller plug into also plugs into our router inside the house. We ran a 75-foot ethernet cable (the white one on the top output of the network switch) from the garage into the attic, then down the wall and put an ethernet outlet where the router is. Both Pis and the controller use static IP addresses.
Great! A lot of people including me have issues with reliability and latency when using their existing network for their light show. If you end up having trouble, you can always just disconnect it, use a different dedicated router, or just set the static IP addresses on everything connected to the network and that way you don't even need a router. Nothing will get DHCP without a DHCP server however.
@PKCubed this is exactly the issue I've been having. I created a small test environment with 100 lights, a falcon 16v4 controller and a switch and it will run a test pattern on the lights fine. As soon as I try to do stuff with it in Xlights, major lag. I was thinking it was the wifi on the falcon conflicting with the wired ethernet connection.
@gregorycerven3484 I actually have a problem similar to yours. Whenever I try to run a sequence through my computer in Xlights my whole family starts to complain the wifi is slow. I also often remote into my computer from my phone when I'm outside testing things, and if I enable "output to lights" in Xlights, I just instantly lose connection. I found out that when I have my computer hard wired into my router it doesn't do that, but still is strange.
@@How2Pixel Wifi works like a network hub. Any traffic from any device will also go to other devices even though its not supposed to go to them. Ethernet however, at least modern networks use switches instead of hubs which will actually route packets where they are supposed to go instead of blasting them to everyone. In a wired network, your computer running xLights sends packets down a likely gigabit link to a switch. Each packet tells the switch what mac address it needs to go to, and the switch which has the mac addresses of everything saved knows which port to send that packet to. That way, someone watching youtube on another computer has little to no effect on you and your light show, because youtube is between that computer and the router to the "big internet." When I used wifi to connect to the controllers in my light show, everything was laggy and slow, because it was all being interfered by the rest of my family, and my neighbors. My controllers only supported 2.4GHz bands, and the spectrum was full of neighbors. I'm still dealing with that problem to this day. My driveway lights have no way to get a wired connection to them, so I'll have to think of something. Sorry for the long comment. Networking is one of my passions. I'm happy to answer questions!
True, but are there ones that can offer enough amperage for the Pis? I know they take a lot of power and I heard you need at least 3 amps 5 volts for each Pi.
@@How2Pixel most of the plug in ones are suitable, they only need 5v and about 3A, a quick google or amazon search will provide you with plenty of options.
@@How2Pixel no problem. I enjoy your content, being from the UK it’s not a popular hobby over here so Your videos are informative. Any plans for a Raspberry Pi 5 or F16V5 reviews?
Thank you! I just got an F16v5 a few days ago and have a lot planned for it. I'm hoping to get videos out as fast as I can, but I'm really busy with the Christmas show. As for the raspberry pi 5, right now I don't have any plans for it. I've heard people say it's way overkill for running a light show, and I already have 3 Pi 4s. So definitely got videos coming for the F16v5, but nothing for the pi 5 right now.
Thank you! It depends on what brightness you are using. My lights run at 30% brightness, so I try not to have more than 200 pixels without power injection. Usually, if I start getting over 150 to 175 pixels per strand, I try to add a power injection if possible to reduce the flickering when the lights are white. If I ran my lights brighter I would have fewer pixels before power injection. It also depends on what voltage pixels you have. All of my pixels are 12 volts, but if I had 5-volt pixels, I would probably have to power inject twice as many times. I recommend checking out this pixel power injection calculator. It helps me out a ton when I can't decide when to power inject. spikerlights.com/calcpower.aspx
