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need advice help


randy88cougar

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i want to outline my window with ccr or ccb or whatever. i have been playing with SS demo and it looks good using ccb strings in the visualizer. what i am wondering is how will it look in real life. the spacing i will probably use is 6 inch. i am wondering will this be to far apart to look good when the lighs are doing morphs or just moving back and forth.  should i not use c9 pixel bulbs and use the ribbon or something else. any advise would be appreciated. maybe someone can post a picture or video of their c9 pixels in action. also i have been told to buy a 1.31 16 channel controller and that centrally locating unit and running extensions will be fine. i would like to know if this is true. i would hate to spend all this money only to find out it dont look good or worse there was a cheaper way.

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I use C9 pixels spaced at 8 inchs  on my house.  Roof line and  10 vertical strips  my house is only 35 feet from side walk where people view I like the look better tha strips looks more like Christmas lights. I do have  ccr's and 2811 strips in other areas

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It will all come down to the look you want. Here are some videos, the first are C9 where you can distinguish each individual bulb. The second are ribbons, dumb ribbons but they will look similar, they look more filled in due to the pixels being closer together.

 

 

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As far as running one controller and using extensions to cover your entire house keep in mind that extensions can't be any longer then 10-15 feet without having to install null pixels to rejuvenate the data signal. If you don't want to use null pixels then more then likely one controller will not cover your house.

Personally I use four smaller controllers to cover the front of my house which is 85' from end-to-end instead of one larger controller to cover the same distance.

You have to be strategic in where you place controllers and plan everything out before you buy.

 

Edited by Mr. P
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Great question and good answers.  Thanks.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but I have been planning and wondering the same thing, I'm moving from incandescent to LED, and weighing the option of what bulb/ribbon I should plan for next year.  This swapping from Halloween to Christmas is crazy time consuming.

Weighing into my decision making, is mounting.  How do people mount either the c9 bulbs or the ribbon?  Right now I use PVC.

I know ribbon can be cut to lengths, what about c9 or other bulbs?

I am leaning towards ribbon right now, and last question, how do people connect one ribbon to another, say if I use four pieces to do a window?  Last, Last, are there connectors or something to connect from the window back to the controller?

Thanks.  I have been reading around also, but it's always good to get different opinions.

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Dave76, first you will need to decide if you are going with CCR, CCP, CCB or aftermarket pixels. If you cut LOR stuff then you lose the warranty but you can pretty much cut and solder most of the ribbons and strings to the length you need within reason

Edited by Mr. P
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I just completed my setup.  New this year are strips around my house trim.  I used left over EMT conduit from my 1st version of my strip tree (toooo darn heavy) But in this instance they work great.  Since I do this my self the longer runs of strip with the conduit are pretty stable and stay almost completely straight with so give or bend with just me mounting them.  With PVC it would be too bendy and potentially break the connections. To connect the ribbons I used the connectors that came with them and ordered more from Ray Wu. Only the strips around the garage,  doors and windows utilize these connector for the 90 degree bends and they are all protected by the eves of my house.  I used so much silicon,  hot glue and shrink to tubing that these things will probably outlast me.  I'll post a link later to the process I did. 

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11 hours ago, Mr. P said:

As far as running one controller and using extensions to cover your entire house keep in mind that extensions can't be any longer then 10-15 feet without having to install null pixels to rejuvenate the data signal. If you don't want to use null pixels then more then likely one controller will not cover your house.

Personally I use four smaller controllers to cover the front of my house which is 85' from end-to-end instead of one larger controller to cover the same distance.

You have to be strategic in where you place controllers and plan everything out before you buy.

 

what small controllers do you use, and what is a null pixel

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Null pixels are placed inline between the controller and first pixel when the distances are becoming too great. The null pixel is basically a regular pixel that is not used for lighting but is used to regenerate the data signal which weakens over distance. It rejuvenates the data signal and sends it down the line to the next pixel. Each time the data signal reaches a pixel it get rejuvenated and sent to the next pixel. This is the easiest way I can explain it.

I actually use the Alphapix4 which has four ports but I use four of them to cover the front of my house. I still get 16 ports but I can spread them across the front to reach everything easily instead of one 16 port controller.

Edited by Mr. P
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where do you get the alphapix4, how much do they run and do they work well with lor ss and se. I just started looking at the easy pix smart pixel controller but dont understand how it connects with my 2 lor ctb16 controllers and holiday coro pixel bulbs, any advice on that would be helpful. i am doing 5 windows 1 window i can split into 2 at 25 pixels each the other 3 windows will use 41 and my 2 garage doors will use 50

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They are an E1.31 controller from Holidaycoro, if you are not using the pixcon from LOR then you will petty much be using E1.31

The Easypix are E1.31

Edited by Mr. P
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