Streetrodder

We have about 100,000 lights and 272 Channels of Light-O-Rama and a 2700 Channel RGB Pixel Tree. This is our 9th year doing animated lights, we added our neighbors house this year and have plans to add another neighbor or two next year.

I read all the literature over at AUSChristmas Lighting Forums and asked questions several times but I tried it this year and I loved it. It has a little learning curve but it is not hard at all and if you do it yourself you can save a lot over the other options.

If they get the right product and right price.

I am using the J1SYS ECG-P12R which uses E1.31 (LOR's advanced program has this).

Anyone else, I tried talking with Laurie but she just keeps referring to the tube lights and that's not what I want.

and highly recommended!

Blue as well for me.

Welcome back Bobby. This was my first year using RGB Pixels and I highly recommend the products listed below, several people have used them with good results. I don't know as much about others but I know this works. Below is an IM I received from one of the guys at the forum Mcas mentioned above. ""Now the system i personally would look at for that tree is (assuming you already have the LOR version with E1.31) ECG-P12R, will give you upto 12 universes of lighting, so you could use 8 outputs for your tree with 2 strings per output and then have options for adding other intelligent lighting later by having 4 spare outputs/universes. The cost of the ECG-P12R is $170, so when you compare the cost per channel to a built and tested E681/2 then the ECG-P12R is the most cost effective choice. The reason the ECG-P2 is not my choice is because its more designed for a distributed load, where as the P12R is designed as a more centralized approach for use with things like pixel trees and matrices. So i would download the ECG-P12R manualif you havent already done so and i would refer to the diagrams on connecting up the strings, you will be connecting 2 strings per output so you wont be fully loading up each output, but instead be using 300 channels from the 510 channels available per output. If you wanted more efficient use of channels then you could go for the ECG-PIXAD8 which is 8 ouputs 8 universes for $$150, but for $20 more you allow yourself more future options. Ok now the lights This is something you will have to decide on if you want the square type or the tradition type of pixelfor your tree and how you decide you want to make your tree will determine what is the best fit. I am using 2811 pixels due to their cheaper price a good dimming qualaties, i use 5vdc for pixel strings as that is a far more efficeint use of pixels, but you can make your mind up which way you want to go by looking at this thread Now the warning the 2811 pixel type is currently not officially supported by the ECG products, but you can use the 1804 pixel code for testing, the 1804 will give some flickering to the lights, but good enough for testing. There is a planned update soon and updating any of the J1sys products is very easy and requires no additional hardware to update. So if you dont want to use the 2811 pixel type then the 2801 pixel type would be the next best choice as this is fully supported So for 16 strings of 2811 the cost = $18 x 16 = $288 (Actually purchased 18 strands) for 16 strings of 2801 the cost = $20 x 16 = $320 (I spent $420.00 on lights and connectors) Now the power supply 5VDC power supply, I use more expensive meanwell power supplies, but the Cheap ones from Ray Wu will do Again the size of the power supply is determined by if you want some extra room for later. Personally i woul just get 2 x 350 watt 5VDC power supplies, the total load of your 16 strings will only be 0.3 watts per LED = 240 watts of total load. The reason why i say 2 x 350 watt Power supplies is because firstly you never want to load up your power supply more than 85% and secondly it is always a good idea to have a backup power supply as i have seen the cheap Chinese ones fail in the past. Now for connecting all this up will depend on what you want to do and use, i use the weatherproof 3 pinand 2 pin plugs from Ray. You will of course need materials to build the tree and a box to house the controller plus other sundaries, but in a nutshell that is what you would need to do your tree and running from LOR E1.31 and using nutcracker. Hope that helps make the picture clearer for you."" So, I used the 2811 Pixel type 5 Volt and the powersupply I used was a Meanwell instead of buying the cheaper one from Ray Wu, I read the Meanwell was a way better unit. Let me know if these links do not work and maybe I can send it to you in an e-mail. Hope this will help get you started!!!!

Bill, can you give us an idea about pricing and maybe any spec on them? They don't list prices on anything.

Thank you they are $89.95 about half of what the other vendor told me. I might try looking into building some, I just need to figure out the control aspect.

Great, have you thought about maybe sending out an informational e-mail on big announcements if you have an easy way of doing this?

Has anyone seen these, I checked with this vendor but they were a little on the pricey side. I was hoping to possibly find them a little cheaper.

Is there anything we need to do if we have made and use effects from the old site?

Go with Ray Wu aliexpress I don't think you will get that there, at least I hope it wasn't him, doesn't sound like something they would do. I've had good results using Ray and he understands our hobby because so many in our hobby have purchased from him.

I purchased RGB lights from Ray Wu or aliexpress as mentioned above, it is in my opinion the best way to dive into RGB Lighting. I added a 16' 900 Pixel RGB Tree this year, it is in my videos, if you have any question let me know. You might want to read this