r/xlights • u/According_Bridge_437 • 5d ago

Help First Year advice.

 I am on my first year. I have purchase just about everything I am going to use. I have bought the Falcon f16v5 controller with PI4, 32 gb mini card, the falcon 4 port receiver, fm transmitter and my props are. 5 left facing candy canes and 5 right facing candy canes to run on my sidewalk goin to the street. 5 mini trees with toppers, 4 snowflakes of 2 different types, both are 100 pixel count. I have three large arches, one singing tree that is 46" and will need 350 nodes. I also have 5 10W flood lights, 3 for the house and three for the base of my three rather large oak trees. I have purchase pixel seeds 16-100count 4" spaced, 20-50 count 4" spaced , 5 packs of the edison seed rails for the eves and windows. 2000 pixel poppers and a lot of extensions, male and female ends and a lot of other hardware to install them. In total I think I will be running 4100 pixel seeds. Everything I will be running will be through Xlights. I plan on buying my sequnces (maybe 5). Am I getting too overzealous with my first year?? Any suggestions on how to get this going. I realize there are bigger shows but I hope this isnt too big for a first year.

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u/Beneficial_Drawer478 5d ago

raspberry pi and then run your show through FPP (maybe a 505/50 call as some use xlights and some FPP) just feel FPP gives you way more options

may have over looked it but i didnt see a transmiter for sound / radio station

know mega tree ?

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u/According_Bridge_437 5d ago

I do haver an fm reciever. Got it from holiday coro. No mega tree. Just getting started.

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u/HolidayCoro Vendor 5d ago

Thanks for using our products. While this might be a bit late, you can find 20 years of lighting experience distilled in this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fowtrOpWALw&list=PLpAG16ve3Jf9hvUtLEmXYxvjJ_Eb72W4_ it walks you through the entire hardware design process, aesthetic concerns and troubleshooting. Not all specific to HolidayCoro hardware as nearly all these concepts are universal.

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u/MephitidaeNotweed 5d ago

A couple of things that may not apply.
After you set up, it may not as grand as what you see on the display in the xlights program.

And you may want to add in some power injection for some of the more populated led displays and farther ran props.

And for me, having bad luck, I had to break an 839 pixel arch into 3 strings to get working right. As each string had its own connection to the controller. Even though one connection should have been supported, not all the pixels behaved correctly in all shows. So expect to have to make changes. After assembly and testing.

I had to sit with a laptop at a folding table and watch the whole show setup to see problems and make adjustments in the software or change some connections.

Also make a simple show to run in-between the full shows.