Answering YOUR Christmas Light Show Questions
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- čas přidán 20. 05. 2024
- I'm answering all of your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Christmas LED Light Shows.
My Light Show Playlist: • Light Show How-To's
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Thank you so much for the kind shoutouts about the Dig-Quad controllers, very much appreciated and humbled! I keep improving them and the whole line-up when I can and it's great to see you actually have multiple versions now! Your light show starts to look more awesome every year! :D
Your a legend in the business mate! This year I've moved to a perma install with Digquad. I'll be buying a second one next year as I've maxed out already. Appreciate everything you have done!
Been watching your permanent led light videos for a few years now and finally pulled the trigger on doing the roofline. You and Quindor are my heroes!
Dude that spiral/pinwheel effect at 2:24 was insane… what a brilliant way to coordinate the various lights into a single visual object. Really neat
I can't take any credit for that, it's all xlights sequencing... quite an amazing program.
Amazing effects, what product did you use for that wall wash lighting effect tthat you said you purchased from yourpixelstore, thanks
Xlights can control the eufy lights?
@@MrAnthonypresutti Yes, I have my Eufy lights hooked up to WLED so xlights can send them data.
@@TheHookUp Awesome thanks
2:24 Is what dreams are made of. Thank you so much for this breakdown. Also, I was wondering about cutting power to my WLED box because the fans kept turning on. Thanks for answering that!
I installed permanent LED strips on my roof lines based on your videos years ago. They're still going strong and I use them year round!
I always enjoy your videos but especially the LED ones. Thank you for the great vids as always!
Thanks Rob.
Great video, love how your holiday display looks!
And love you’re using DigQuad controllers!
a typical gaming PC easily uses more power than all those lights 😎 no sweat
Love your channel man. Thanks for all your hard work!
So fun and joyful. Thanks!
$40 for the season.. is exactly why I don't pay attention it... it is irrelevant.
But love the video!
Following your advice (LED strips, Quin-LED Quad, etc 5v), I started last year - 2022. I threw away all my $$$$ traditional outdoor props and lighting and started fresh.
First thing I did last year was to add 1st story roofline.
This year I am adding second story roofline (3,000 sq ft house) this week and if I get time, I'll a try to add some coroplast props.
Wow! Beautiful lights 👍
First year and just starting with roof lights. My biggest question is how do you organize your controllers? What enclosure do you use? And how do you get the data line to the first pixel. Seems like you have everything in your garage. I have to keep my dig in the attic so the data wire goes right through the eve into the puck track. My roof line is not very close to my garage, inconveniently.
Great channel and great tips to get me started. Made it this far without having to ask a specific question. Working roof line and one window has trim pixel string!
Doing my first christmas display this year, I have a dig octa and dig quad and some standalone esp32's for inside the windows. No music or anything just smaller sequences with xlights. I started with the roofline and well kinda got outta hand!
Thanks for all the advice!
What do you think about the Govee light curtain? I so want to have changing shapes and install it on my garage door ?
So I hope you might give it a review
That’s awesome
great video. seriously
Can you make a diagram showing how to hook up Eufy to WLED without the dig-quad and just using a ESP32/8266? I tried by running a +/- jumper between the unconnected ends and then data into the led string and no luck. Adjusted LED prefs to SK with GRB and swapping W&G.
Amazing effects at 2:24, what product did you use for that wall wash lighting effect that you said you purchased from yourpixelstore, thanks
Curious, since I know you have mentioned in the past to avoid moving installed led strips, how are you getting around this with your driveway lights? Are the installed permanently in the pex and you don't roll it up? Or maybe you haven't had problems with rolling it up? Thanks for all that you do! You serve as inspiration and education to us all!
Happy New Year from a recent subscriber! Not sure where to ask this, but do you have any tips on diffusing black lights? My limited understanding is that most channel covers block UV light either unintentionally or as an advertised feature. A video on black lights in general might be a potential idea for you that I'm not sure you've tackled yet.
Tons of great information as always. I love the driveway lights. We do a big light display but haven’t made the jump to syncing it to music yet. It’s starting to feel inevitable
Love all of your videos, so helpful! It looks like you have all your controllers in one centralized location. My controllers are scattered all over because of problems with long cable runs. How did you address that so you could centralize everything?
I've found that if you use the 33ohm resistor setting on the digquad you can get about 50ft of first run cabling before running into data issues. I've also heard people having good success with this cable that runs the data on the outside: amzn.to/47D2RFb
Your channel is the King of DIY holiday lighting. Thanks for all the info over the years.
Quick question - have you looked into Bright Home lights? How do they compare with YPS; especially the LEDs?
I hadn't heard of that company, but I just checked them out. Looks like they are using the same supplier as YPS. I like that they are offering RGBW lights, but they are about 15% more expensive than YPS.
Do you have any videos setting up the candy canes?
How do you cut power to your LEDs? Just a smart switch for the power supply?
I used to use a product called WoW Lights back some 10 years ago. I want to try to do up the entirety of our Main Street here in our small town. It would be about 5 blocks both sides of the street.
This only takes you a day each year?? I did a light show this year and I spent at least 2 months building and wiring everything up! I did use dmx moving fixtures and lots of relay boards but still!
Can you make a video on how you plan the Christmas light show from start to finish please thank you????
It's a great setup. I don't really want anything this extensive, especially since around here light shows on houses just isn't a thing. I'd like some RGBW permanent pucks though - they could do warm white all year round to light up the front of the house, and have some color for Christmas. As for daytime curb appeal - maybe have actual tree-looking trees under the LED's. Not necessarily actual living ones, but something that looks like a green tree.
Thanks for your awesome and educational videos on so many topics of interest to us smart home LED tech junkies! Any suggestions on best practices for running 12v power and data long distances??? I have a number of trees in my large front yard, a few hundred feet from the house and I want to install ws2811 10w floods to control with dig-quad, keeping the controller in the house. Not sure best way to get data and power long distances.
Use an inline fuse close to the power supply. If your first location is a significant distance you can turn the potentiometer on the power supply up to between 13-14V so that it reaches your LEDs at 12V.
best portable projectors from 200$ and below. Awesome videos man!
How have the driveway PEX lights held up to the elements? Seen many posts about PEX wearing down due to UV, so it's deterred me to this point. Was hoping to leave them out permanently, but that doesn't seem possible.
Is there any issue with having multiple power supplies on your garage circuit ? I currently have my meanwell 12v 30amp power supply on my 20Amp garage circuit and I worry about adding any more power supplies.
Also do you have a video when you created the driveway lights?
12v 30a is only 360 watts. Your 120vac 20a garage circuit can handle 2400 watts.
Is there a way to tie the govee lights into the control you use for your show? Or are you tied to the govee control? I have been thinking about using govee for my permanent roof outline lights… but I wonder if the diy option is better!
You can hook up the Govee non-pro lights exactly the same way that I showed the Eufy lights in this video. The Govee pro lights are currently not compatible with WLED.
Thanks for the video! If I can figure out how to get the Eufy lights connected with WLED using your wiring diagram, would I be able to add more light strands on to it…extending beyond 100ft?
You'll need a bigger 36v psu, but yes.
@@TheHookUp any recommendations on where I could find this?
I’m thinking it might be easier to add a second kit on its own power and then control them through WLED? Would this be too complicated in WLED to create seamless animations for a beginner like me?
@@bradenjenkins9893 WLED has options for syncing multiple controllers.
Where might I go to buy the used kits those frustrated people are throwing in the trash? Thanks for the great videos 🙏
Facebook groups. XLight Support, DIY Christmas, and your local/state lightshow group (mine is called Extreme Lighting Fanatics of FL).
Can I ask you a question, I want to run at least 3 WS2815 60 LEDs/m strip with 12V 30A BTF Lighting power supply 360-12, in parallel. How can I do the connection. Would 30A damage the WS2815 ? Pls suggest.
The Eufy light controller only allows one set of lights (6 strings of 10 lights) to be controlled by it's controller. By changing to the WLED controller are you able to control all of your Eufy lights as one long string?
I didn't try to use more than 6 strings. I bet it would work, but you'd need to make sure your data signal is strong and your voltage drop is minimal (power injection).
So once you have it configured with wled, can you use home-assistant to control the holiday show w/ xlights? or do you have to use xlights software?
Xlights is just the software to do the sequencing. You can run it with xlights, but most people use a separate program called falcon player pi (fpp).
I've got some of those novastela flood lights as well. How did you get them to work with xLights? The one's I bought have a non-esp32 chip instead. Do your's have an esp32 inside? I've seen other people do the same thing. Would you mind letting me know how or making a video about it?
Mine were ESP8266 inside. I believe they switched chips about 3 years ago, which sucks.
Yeah, I thought that might be the case... I'll figure out something I can do with them.@@TheHookUp
Do you have links to how you built or where to find material to build spiral pvc above your garage?
czcams.com/video/ykH-cNwk6rI/video.html
What gauge wire are you using? If you use any of the online wire gauge calculators, the recommended gauge is very high, especially for 5V. For example, 5V/3A/50ft with 5% voltage drop should be 8 gauge wire. At 100ft it should be 4 gauge. That's just ridiculous! It would be much cheaper to run 120V to each power injection point and use small power supplies for each one. But then there's the issue of concealing the power supplies if you do that.
My concern is not only wasting power by using too low gauge wire, but also the risk of causing a fire.
I've been using Twinkly lights but they recently died on me. They allow you to connect up to 500 lights in a single run and they don't suffer dimming issues. The downside is they are proprietary and limited in functionality.
This is one of the down sides of having multiple eaves/gables and roof lines. It will look beautiful but to do puck track on the front of my house it’s $1,100 for just the track 😅
Are the driveway liner lights made the same as the pex wreath?
They are made of pex, but I was able to find a slightly more clear version.
20c per KWH? we are definitely being ripped off in the UK.
This reminds me of the "Christmas in wadena" show, in my local town... that said, since I know you do a lot of LED stuff, I had a question that I wanted to know the answer to...
The question is, if I had a bare LED strip of any kind, but wanted it to be more or less water protected, for possible use outside, on a project i may be doing, as in, one without a rubberized coating over it, would i be able to take and, after sticking, and semi-permanently adhering it, just spray my outer project skin with a clear FlexSeal spray?
The reason I ask, is because i want to know if adding something like FlexSeal would create problems with the strips, like say, regarding heat generation/insulation, that might degrade lifespan over time?
Before someone asks, I'm wondering all this, because that's exactly the scenario I have. I don't have a lot of money, and i already have a BTF lighting RGB strip laying around, specifically for any projects i might want to do, and it would in theory, be good if, when I'm coating the rest of my project I'm able to coat that as well...
For anyone who is interesting what my current project is, I am debating, about whether I should take a bicycle trailer that I got from a family friend, that used to be covered in canvas, that a baby or child would normally ride in, and I am possibly thinking about making some carbon fiber panels for the back and sides as well as possibly the top, and I was thinking that I would have some lights on the outside of the trailer so as to light the area around it, as well as some red lights on the rear, that would hopefully flash if I can figure out how to set that up... If the FlexSeal method would work, then once I'm done making my carbon fiber shell, I can then more or less weatherproof it to a certain degree, both on the inside lights and outside lights, that they would be more or less waterproof, so as to hopefully, not lose any noticeable lifespan of the lights, while keeping water from being able to access the strips
BenQ HT 4550i vs Hisense c1 in picture quality , who will win ?
and
Hisense c1 Hisense vidda c1 pro r same ?
Thanks.
4550i has slightly better picture quality but lacks dolby vision. Vidda C1 Pro and Hisense C1 Global are not the same, Vidda C1S and Hisense C1 Global use the same light engine, but have different software.
@@TheHookUp - I know u r very busy....thank u very much !
Is there a RGBW pixel or only in puck design? Thanks
That's a good question! I've seen RGBW pucks and strips, but I don't think I've seen RGBW pixels. They have to exist though...
How do you cut power? Are you using a relay and 5v PSU to keep the Dig board always active, or shutting off the whole unit?
I shut off the whole unit with a shelly relay. I have a shelly4pro (probably overkill) that has 4 channels: 2x 5V PSUs, 1x 12V PSU, and the Eufy 36V PSU.
@@TheHookUp Which Shelly product do you suggest for 1x 12V PSU?
Shelly Plus 1PM if you have it hardwired to electrical, otherwise just get a smartplug.
@@TheHookUp To make sure I understand, is the wiring:
1) Positive input from power cable into L
2) Use O as Positive output to PSU
3) Neutral input from power cable into N1, use N2 as Neutral output to PSU
4) Connect ground straight from power cable to PSU.
Yes. For future reference though, with AC current we call the black wire Hot, or Line rather than positive.
Is there an issue with the big mega tree where it looks like there's a couple white/red lines not in sync with the rest?
Yep, didn't notice it until someone pointed it out in the comments. I mixed up strand 10 and 16 due to bad handwriting. Fixed now.
It's interesting that you take down your Christmas lights before the end of the '12 days of Christmas' What are the 12 days of Christmas? According to tradition, it is the period that marks the span between the birth of Christ and the coming of the three kings. So it begins on December 25 (Christmas) and runs through January 6 (the Epiphany, sometimes also called Three Kings' Day)
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What are the eufy lights you mentioned called? I can't seem to find eufy wall wash lights anywhere 😢
Eufy E120: czcams.com/video/DM-VhGarNgM/video.html
@@TheHookUp thanks!
That one center strand on the mega tree would drive me bonkers
Fixed! It appears my handwriting was bad enough that I swapped strand 10 and 16.
Curious to know what you think about the Govee curtain lights.
Pretty cool, they have existed for a while but govee has made them more accessible.
@@TheHookUp guess I find out tomorrow 😂
I wanna see how you run all thos cables to the digquads. Are they inside or outside or what?
Quads are in my garage, they pass through the soffit to get outside.
@@TheHookUp interesting. The long data lengths don't give you any issues?
Nope.
@@TheHookUp interesting. I guess I need to figure out how to feed data to my garag and then figure out power.
Aren't the 12v lights also brighter?
Same brightness. The advantage of 12V is that they can do longer runs without power injection, but they are less than half as efficient as 5V lights.
You used to do a much of how to's. I'd kill to figure out your driveway pex tubes and "wall wash from your pixel store"... I'm too dumb to find the wall wash lights
I did a whole video about the wall wash lights: czcams.com/video/DM-VhGarNgM/video.html
@@TheHookUp I stand corrected. You are awesome!
@@TheHookUpwhat are you using for the driveway pex lights?
I learned early to leave my display on all night. Otherwise you have drunk people knocking on the door at 3 am wanting you to turn them on because they drove their friend over to see them.
Anyone having issues getting their Eufy non-pro to work with an ESP32 and WLED? Ive tried to adjust just about everything and nothing is working. Quadruple checked the wiring, tested with multiple ESP32's, confirmed 36V at the end of the LED lights. Reinstalled WLED across multiple ESP32's. Tried GPIO as 2 and a bunch of other numbers based on the ESP32 pinout reference guides. Tried multiple power supplies to the ESP32. Reconfirmed the lights still work and operate as they should by reconnecting to the Eufy controller. LED output set to WS281x, length 10... etc. Ive tried with the brightness limiter on and off. I tried creating segments as well. Still no luck. ESP32 red light is solid and the wifi blue led is flashing. Any ideas?
I haven't tried to run them straight off a ESP32. The DigUno and DigQuad have 5V level shifting built in while the ESP32 outputs 3.3V data. I'm not sure if the Eufy lights will work with 3.3V data.
@@TheHookUp that has to be the issue. I was thinking since the CZcamsr Chris Maher had sucess with the Govee and ESP32 that itd be the same for Eufy. Apparently not. Too bad I cant find a digquad in stock anywhere this time of year.
Just did another test with a random set of LED's (not the Eufy) and it works just fine so you have to be correct with the data output voltage issue.
Wait, so there are no speakers, but you have a radio running so people can stay in their cars and tune in to that radio frequency?
Correct
If you make the power yourself with solar it's okay to use that amount of power.
45 days of light show is less than 1 day of solar production.
@@TheHookUp You are right, it sounds of very little, but you are an inspiration to a lot of people incl. my self and if we all are saying it's just very little power it adds up to a lot. And if the power is produced with oil it's not very good for the environment. I am not saying it's wrong what you doing, but I just think we all needs to be aware that even a small amount adds up to a lot if we are many that wants to do a light show like yours. Thanks for all your very informative videos.
People are so obsessed on electricity that they forgot that LED lights are so far from the consumption of an air heater, water heater or any heating system 😂. His whole LED system consume the exact amount of electeicity than an old farm 400w outdoor bulb light 😊
.20 for a kWh makes me sad, southern California mine is 42c a kWh
Everything's more expensive in CA :)
Not even Thanksgiving yet
seems like this year people in my community are 'early'. I typically am up on black Friday, but this year 6 or so homes are already up.
Surprisingly we were not even close to the first lights up this year. I think the newer trend of having lights professionally installed has caused people to start earlier since the companies get booked up quickly.
@@TheHookUp
Think you spotted the explanation... 3 of the 6 I see in my neighborhood were put up by professional installers.
I don't get why wled isn't a totally pain in the butt to everyone but me.
What issues do you have with it? Every issue I've ever had with WLED was WiFi related.
You seem to have a string on the right mega tree thats out of sync.
Nice catch... time to go investigate.
Solved, strand 10 and 16 swapped due to bad handwriting on the labels.
apparently my local power company gives people a break on their power bill for Christmas light shows
That's awesome!