DIY Permanent Holiday Lights

Hey everyone. Me and the wife are thinking happy thoughts as there is a lot going on in our lives. We’ve always wanted some of those permanent holiday lights on the house but dishing out thousands of dollars seems a bit much to us for a few hundred LEDs and some wood fascia/covers. But I wanna hear your thoughts. I mean most are only 1 LED every 6” if that. So you’re talking a couple hundred maybe a thousand on LEDs, copper, and a controller; the wood covering which some don’t do is your biggest cost. Am I thinking about this wrong?

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I’ve seen those systems. Very cool looking, but ridiculously expensive. Got a quote 2 years ago, still in sticker shock. Tomorrow, I’ll be on a ladder hanging lights… lol

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That’s what I’m saying. My sister had a guy install them on her house. I’ve taken a close look at hers. It’s just painted thin wood. With basically a custom esp and power module to control everything. I would think if I can source the LEDs it would be stupid cheap.

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You should take a look at this thread. Has a lot of info on exactly what I think you are looking for:

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Holy cow Jeffe did it! And it is just about as simple as I thought… I will add I think I might add it into a CNC project as I do like how my sisters is hidden. But I can definitely be lazy… no the wife would never go for it I need to design something

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The Hook Up had the best guides on it when I was setting it up:

I installed some on my mother’s house that have been fine. She just has trouble with the networking parts.

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Great video and confirms my beliefs. I gotta price it out now…

My wife was poking fun at me that I was posting a thread about holiday lights on a CNC forum last night. It’s pretty funny to me that multiple of you have done it already!

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LOL we talk about all kinds of stuff not cnc related on this forum! One of my favorite parts!

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I saw that thread I pointed you too a while back and was making plans to do it to my house at the time. Then my wife decided she wanted to move, so I put a pause on the plans until we found the new house. We went from a single story ranch to a 2 story with finished attic bonus room/space. Needless to say I do not have the ladders to get up there, not to mention the wife wasn’t too keen on me being up on the roof (though she keeps asking me if the life insurance is paid up). We paid for a service to come out and put up the lights this year, and 3 guys did it in about 3 hours. Would have taken me 3 days.

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So unfortunately Christmas is getting to be too expensive this year, the wife and I have decided to wait on doing the holiday lights until later. Hopefully January or February I can start ordering the parts.

So far I have decided to do pixels with some kind of mounting (I’d love to CNC something but not sure if economical, may just stick with J channel)

I’ll keep this thread updated as I progress. Just gonna take some time

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I installed mine the first week of January. It was when I finally had time :slight_smile:

No worries though, they will be there next year and they are great for birthday parties and halloween too.

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New Years
Valentines
St Pattys Day
Easter
Memorial day
Veteran’s day
July 4th
Birthday’s
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas…

You can probably come up with a holiday to light up the house to every month :slight_smile:

I’ll prolly end up doing something like this at the new place. Just have to make sure the strips I get can do white too. Then they can be used for normal lights during non-holiday nights. I know I’ll be putting some down the stairs to the little apartment room. Shaneh will be using that as her office.

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That is really your new place!!! Oh man, sitting on the deck having a coffee in the morning…whoa.

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That looks amazing!!! Apt, can i visit? Lmao

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What do you have against arbor day…? :rofl::joy::grin:

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Very nice! Congrats!

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It’s just another hallmark holiday :slight_smile:

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I thought that was your dream home you were wanting for Christmas. I didn’t realize it existed and you live there! It looks amazing.

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We’re still in Florida. We’re planning on moving at the end of Feb. Have to wait for taxes and crap. This is why I’m not sure I’ll make it to rmrrf next year.

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