Permanent House Pixel Track

[ItsMeBobO]

This year I have been telling everyone I would be 'Dark'  in the new house.    Too much to do.     That has been the story for five months anyway.   So this week my lovely wife says.   When are you putting up the lights?  Should have started by now.    Errr Um.  No show this year remember?    Yes... we agreed on no show.   But I didnt think that meant no LIGHTS, she says.   We need some lights!   Cant have a new house without lights.  

Well I am completly caught by this revelation.   Stunned is a good word too.     I think this started when a friend said they had permanent track lights installed on two sides of their house.   Theirs is a prepacked deal with an app and canned rainbow blink.   I am completely shocked how much that canned system costs!   The pixel spacing is only ONE pixel per foot.  PM me if you want to chat about that.  

 

So  .. Snap research and purchase and the stuff is already here!    Looks pretty good so far.  Much heavier gauge aluminum than I expected.    This new house is way way too tall for me to do anything on the outline.  But I have already found someone to do the custom install for me.  They will be here Monday.    We will see if the job can be done before Thanksgiving.   A lot of prep was not done.  

Since this is a completely new preview with nothing other than the house outline,  I might dare S6.

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by ItsMeBobO

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

We too are doing the same thing as far as just a static display this year.. We closed on our new house back in May. And me and my wife also agreed that no lights were best…. Until two weeks ago when she said the exact same thing as your bride….. so I installed RGB flood lights this week… drew up a 4 hour animation, created a show and scheduled it. Now we have “lights” lol

We are a family of 4…. We made a 2 bedroom 1 bath house last for 7 years. We only had 2 kids in it for 3 years though. We went from 1069sqft to right at 2k and 4 bedroom house with an office that could be a 5th bedroom.. 

the lights have been all in the planning process… though for next year… this year a Built a 25ft flag pole with a boat winch and a slide that rides up and down it. Poured the concrete and anchored it with a very substantial anchoring system. Lol a few of the guys on here have seen the design. But.. the plans for it is a 24ft 3200 rgb tree. 32x100….

my wife has been the main one who has said “we need a break from people sitting outside at Christmas time.” I have had people asking me like crazy about the light show in our little town.. and the wife said yesterday she was going to Miss our lightshow…. I am too. But having SOMETHING up. Makes things better.. and to be honest, not having to do the advertising and all of the work this year has been a nice little break…. But NEXT YEAR, oh boy! Lol… 

I have had a friend that put up some of the tracks like you have. And he was not impressed with the corner pieces that you can buy for them… SO if you can Put them up without the corner pieces.

like this.

l_

it may work better for you. From what I understand, the corner pieces are 3D printed. 
I can’t speak first hand about them. But maybe they will chime in….

good luck buddy. And be sure and share to us what you come up with for your static display!

 

 

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

Hope to do a little more this week. I’ve got strawberry lights to add. 

[ItsMeBobO]

Major oh no heart attack this morning!  The light track boxes were GONE off the porch when I looked out the window!   I totally panicked and got pissed and started to order new ones!   But then I thought I have to call the installer to not come.  But then I saw the installer truck around the side of house!   He was already here to install them and had moved them!   OY.    

Got my adrenaline going to start the day. 

[ItsMeBobO]

Spent all weekend pushing pixels.  Very tight. Ended up drilling each to loosen the fit.  Still on the garage floor in this test.  Ladder work today and Thursday
https://vimeo.com/775633915

 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by ItsMeBobO

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

How happy with are you with it so far? And did you use the 1” spacing? looks pretty good. At least drilling out the holes is better than the holes being too big. Thanks for the update!

Edited November 28, 2022 by weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com

[PhilMassey]

Very nice. If I were 20 yrs younger.............

[dibblejr]

2 hours ago, ItsMeBobO said:

Spent all weekend pushing pixels.  Very tight. Ended up drilling each to loosen the fit.  Still on the garage floor in this test.  Ladder work today and Thursday
https://vimeo.com/775633915

 

 

As our great friend Phil said , "very nice".

Did your contractor hang the strips or just brackets.

I may change mine out for bullets after seeing yours but at 60' up I do not want to do it myself.

Havent heard from you in a while

JR

[ItsMeBobO]

Got them all up!    Two installers were here two days about 5 hours.   ~20 hours for them.   947 pixels  on 2 inch spacing

 

 

[PhilMassey]

Quite jealous. Boy are you gonna have fun next year.

How did you distribute the controllers.

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

Very nice! which company did you order them from? I’ve seen a few of them. also, I too would like to know if you went ahead and put your controllers on them, or used the WiFi /phone setup that some of them come with.

[ItsMeBobO]

Pixie 16.    Used 11 ports with various number of pixels.   ~160ft of track from the 200 I bought.   I pushed in the pixels in the garage and had to make the segments to be carried up the ladder individually.   It would have been too hard to use all 100 pixels for each port.   I had to make many cuts and add on jacks maybe 10 of the segments. 

Four full pieces left and a bunch of short scrap which is the right amount of leftover to me.  The light and power extensions were all inside the track and routed along a single path.   No wire was alone in its route and no controllers on the roof.   Just one controller in the middle

This sheet shows the end to end path including the gaps.   Needed 470 feet of pixel extensions.

 

There are 24 segments to draw a preview for.   I am flunking out of that class for S6.   One more try tonight.  Else I am going back to S4 which I know I can do much faster. 

 

 

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

Wow man! Nice work!

[dibblejr]

Did you get the track from LOR?

JR

[ItsMeBobO]

I dont think LOR sells anything like this.   So I guess ok to post the link. https://www.holidaycoro.com/PixaTrack-Pixel-Node-Mounting-Track-for-Permanent-p/1900.htm   I got very familiar with this product.  Happy to answer questions anyone has. 

 

[ItsMeBobO]

Running into a few problems this week.   Two of my strings are showing voltage problems.    This seems to be related to 1) when its colder outside  2) the string and overall current needed.    

The first week I had chases going which had lots of gaps between the lit bulbs.  This was so I could confirm all the sections had the correct number and orientation etc.     That worked fine and I never saw voltage issues.  

New sequences with all the lights on and fading are killing it.   All red ok.   Red to white knocks out the furthest string.  

 

 

Two problem ports are..  

#11 with 97 pixels and 95 feet of extensions   <-furthest from controller and high count.   Loses communication and sticks  usually white with 10% not lit at all and a few blue and yellow odd balls.   

#8  with 87 pixels and 33 feet of extensions   <- Middle distance from controller.   This one blinks and fades but has not lost communication.  Always recovers and displays the correct colors.

 

Definite correlation to colder nights,  shows poorer performance for these two ports.

Notice port #10 has 90 pixels and 72 feet of extensions.    But it and all the others always light end to end and have good whites.   No idea why 9 ports dont show the problems.

I have found that lowering the overall intensity of all the ports fixes #8.     I also lower #11 intensity more than the rest and it also recovers.   Does respond and shows the white ok if its dim. 

 

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

i was told today that AC voltage Drops after about 100ft. I would imagine that voltage drop on DC would be a bigger percentage of drop...

how hard would it be for you to PI? if PI isnt already in it.

 

[dibblejr]

Bob- I have some injection "T"'s I can send you if you want to try.

Free to you my friend. Text me your info, its probably buried in my phone by now.

JR

[weigh2fast4u@yahoo.com]

6 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

Bob- I have some injection "T"'s I can send you if you want to try.

Free to you my friend. Text me your info, its probably buried in my phone by now.

I also have some Power supplies for Power injection. would be glad to send over! as much as you do for all of us with Miip and everything. i would be glad to get it there! Go real good with JRs Ts! 

[ItsMeBobO]

There are some things I dont get first.   Why are ONLY ports 11 & 8 having issues.   10 and 9 have more extensions than 8.   9 has 13 more pixels and 12 feet more extensions. 

I understand there is power drop with the additional length.   I have just a single controller location and want to stay that way.  IF I were to do PI,    I would want it to be from the same controller location and follow the same path to the light string along the tracks.   What this ends up being is simply acting like a bigger wire from the power source to the pixels. 

for port 11.... notice it is four sections   15,23,26,33 totaling 97.    I am thinking that running another wire.....  why PI?    instead I can split 11 into 11 & 12    making 11 be sections of 33+26   and 12 sections of 23 + 15 (the furthest with most extensions over 100ft would have only 38 pixels)

 

What I expected JR to suggest was to use TWO psu's, one on each bank.   And to try to make the draw equal on each side.   When I say equal it would include the length and current drop from extra extensions.   Right now there are few extensions on the 1-8 side. 

Hey   I just realized this... The two with trouble are both the highest numbered on the bank.   8  on the 1-8 side and 11 on the 9-16 side.      I am not using 12  to 16. 

 

This sheet details the power drop over length   http://spikerlights.com/calcpower.aspx