Very cool. So what is the minimum hardware/setup needed to to start with a display over the entryway and garage? I always have been interested but never invested enough time to work through the initial learning curve
There are a lot of ways to go and some of it would depend on how much DIY you want to do. You could start a little cheaper if you built your own controller with box because you could buy a smaller board but then you buy the enclosure, power supply, pigtails, and wires and then wire it all up yourself. Or you can buy something like this link which gives you an awesome 16 output controller already prebuilt for $380. Then you just need to buy the pixel strings or pixel strips to connect up to those pigtails. You usually have to build some wiring and solder pigtails on the ends to get from the controller to the start of each string. Strings can be daisy chained on the same output but then you may need to do what we call “power injection” which is when you tap in between strings with a fresh 12v or 5v power and ground to keep the power boosted high enough. My first controller I actually built inside a $5 plastic box from Walmart and I used it for 4 years. All the software to run this stuff and create sequences is free. Our xLights software now has it’s own scheduler where you create playlists so your show will startup and shutdown on it’s own. If you don’t want to tie up a PC running the show you can use a Raspberry Pi to run it. I use the Raspberry Pi and I can go almost the whole month without touching it unless I’m adding a new sequence or updating the playlist.
https://www.pixelcontroller.com/store/index.php?id_product=50&controller=product
If you want to start really small you can get a board like this that will piggy back on top of a raspberry pi but it will only run 2 outputs.
https://www.pixelcontroller.com/store/index.php?id_product=47&controller=product
The best thing is to try to plan what you want and then figure out the hardware you need to drive. You can even just get xLights and model everything on your house to see how it will look before you spend any money at all. This is an older video I mainly did to show how fast you could create a layout in the program so I rushed through things but watch how within 10 minutes I’ve got a complete house layout drawn and I’m running effects across the whole house.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
