Permanent Outdoor Lights (Christmas lights)

Not individually, no.

The entire power supply is only drawing .76a from the wall (60w), so it can’t be much.

I built this a few years ago. It used to have a pi zero in it that would turn relays on to turn all the lights on each night, but I removed all that when I started using home assistant.

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That looks fantastic. No need to put your efforts down!! I wish I had peaks along the front of my house, it’s just a rectangle with a straight roofline.

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I just picked up a few more of the espixelsticks. I want to try putting WLED on them. Then I’ll have them to create some new props for next year. One less excuse to not do it :slight_smile: .

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Did you see the premade “plug and go” AliExpress controllers I linked a while back?

They’re only for 5v, but they are as easy as pie.

I did. I like the flexibility of the espixelstick. I also like that I feel like I’m helping a fellow tinkerer out by buying his hardware.

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Totally a valid point!

Just curious, but where did you order the ESPixelsticks from. I am showing them out of stock on the Amazons, so trying to find sourcing. I am still working on getting the CFO’s buy in, so I still need to get the BOM together to show an “initial” price. This is going to be delayed until next year as I just got approval to order a thickness planer (it’ll be here next Monday…Merry Christmas to me)!!

I ordered them straight from the guy’s site:

Awesome, thanks!! I’ll give it a look.

One thing to note. He mentions on his site in a response to a comment as to why he’s not selling them on Amazon. it’s because last year he had a bunch of them returned after christmas with the excuse “not what expected”.

He does mention on the site that he’ll put some on Amazon again after Christmas is over. If you don’t need them until next year, then you can probably get them there.

Was able to check out his page and bookmark it at home so I can get back to it later. I like Amazon as the wife has prime so we can save a little bit on shipping. But as you said, I would like to support local if possible. I don’t know how much of a cut Amazon takes of his sales, so would rather buy direct.

Thanks again for the link!

That is exactly what I’ve been wanting to make for my Digi Quad. Do you happen to have a link to the case that you used?

This guy?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-Outdoor-Timer-Box-57095/100158884

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Dude! Thank you so very much! Just received my relay for my DigQuad and needed a case for the exact same setup as you. I was going to use a buck converter (110 → 5v) but, this is so clean. I’m picking one up today!

Any issues with cooling?

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I haven’t had issues with over temp. Mine is a bigger PSU and it has a fan built in.

On my mom’s house, I bought the smaller one and it doesn’t have a fan. I don’t want to make extra house calls (she doesn’t live close). So being extra cautious I cut a big hole in the front and installed a 12V fan. The 12V fan is connected right to the 12V, so when the relay is off, the fan is off.

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That was exactly what I was going to do. Add a weather proof exhaust vent with a fan exactly hooked up like yours. Thanks for the time reposing. Picked up the case and it is the perfect size!

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I even went to the trouble of sticking a small esp32 and temp probe on mine to turn the fan on/off by temperature. It only ever kicks on during the summer months. During the winter, the cabinet doesn’t get warm enough to turn the fan on even with 2 power supplies in my cabinet.

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Dear friends… I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall for a long time now. I’m trying to make a christmas gift for my father-in-law. (the smith) He has bought himself a Mercedes Vito for his ventures. The funny thing is - he found out after buying it that it has been used as a hearse! So - my mother-in-law and I are planning to make a cross to put on the roof, only that it’s supposed to blink with rainbow colors, and we’ll suprise him on christmas eve, putting the switch in a christmas present, and suprising him when using it!

WELL - the thing is… I’m trying to set up ws2812b (5v) using wled. I’ve got the thing to work using one led only, but when I attach a longer strip, they just blink! I have more than enough power, and I’ve got common ground with the nodemcu (esp2866). I’ve tried thousands of tweaks in settings, but nothing seems to work. I even attached a 10 piece strip, that was blinking - and then I cut it off while running, and the one remaining led switched to the right color and remained solid (until frying…)

I’m sorry for reviving this old thread, and it’s very much on the side of the topics intention, but I hope there’s some of you that can show some mercy to a frustrated hobbyist…

Oh my. I haven’t had to change the settings, unless I was using one of the other chip types. This is the wiring diagram I follow:

https://kno.wled.ge/basics/getting-started/

I have only used the recommended pin with esp8266s (GPIO2). The 8266 is slower than the esp32, and it has a lot to do.

My first thought though was your power supply. You should be able to use any power supply with only 10 leds. But maybe it is resetting and that is why it is blinking? The capacitor on the input helps with that.

IDK if you have reached out on the wled discourse. They would know more about the common problems like this.

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Hm, maybe I should try the wemos d1 again. Couldn’t make it work, but I think that’s because I messed up the pins. The esp8266 works with one led only as mentioned, perhaps the issues are related to the lack of timing. I’ll go back to the wemos again- thanks for hearing me out!

I’ve been watching a guy on YouTube using the nodemcu, and he didn’t have the timing issues, but what do I know…