Holiday Light Shows 101: LEDs, Controllers, Props, and Sequencing for BEGINNERS. 5 Hour MegaTree!

today on the hookup I'm gonna walk you through everything you need to know in every step you need to take in order to create your first holiday LED music and light show holiday light shows aren't exactly new but they used to require so much technical know-how that they were only attempted by electronics wizards fast forward to 2019 and the process has been simplified and the options and capabilities expanded to the point where even a novice can put together an impressive light show in under a week this video is going to cover the absolute basics of holiday light shows to get you started in time for this year's big season this video came out a bit longer than I was expecting so feel free to use these timestamps to jump around in the video to the parts that you're interested in first let's talk about the stars of the show the LEDs in this department you've got a lot of choices but here are some generally accepted rules to make inform decisions before you buy if you're going to be moving your props around and taking them down every year you should probably use individual LED pixels instead of LED strips LED strips are great for more permanent setups because they're cheaper per pixel easier to install and they can achieve a more cohesive look due to their higher pixel density but they don't do well with being moved around and if an LED burns out it's much more difficult to replace a single LED in a strip than a single LED in a string the 5 volt versus 12 volt debate has gone on for a long time but here's the easy answer if your runs are short like 50 pixels or less then 5 volt LEDs will look great and consume significantly less power than their 12 volt counterparts if you have long runs then 12 volt strands will allow you to achieve greater brightness without losing color accuracy due to voltage drop no matter which voltage you choose if you're gonna do very long runs you will need to inject power but the 12-volt strands are going to require less for pixel type there are tons of options but 99% of holiday light shows are done with either W s 28 11 or ws2812 B pixels if you want to know more about the differences between these chips I made a whole video on it but your light show is probably going to end up with RGB ws 28 11 pixels the vast majority of the time addressable LEDs are useless without something to send data to them we call these devices pixel controllers and just like the LEDs you've got quite a few options so here's a quick breakdown if you're just going to be messing around in your office or a single small prop you might to start out with an open-source controller like an esp8266 base node MCU running es pixel stick or w LED this is a great way to get started because you can get the hang of the concepts for very little money and you may even be able to limp through a small show but chances are you're gonna want to upgrade to a wired controller sooner rather than later there's quite a bit of competition in the world of Wired pixel controllers and I don't claim to have used every controller type but here's my opinion of some of the most common controllers if you're looking for super DIY and cheap you can get a kit for the sand devices ISA --xx 8216 port controller for just a hundred and nine dollars but when I say kit I mean kit the components come in bags with an unpopulated PCB and you're gonna need to assemble and solder it yourself if that's your idea of a fun Friday night then go for it but even for a seasoned solder or like myself I'd prefer to pay a little bit more and skip the assembly step the most popular controller on the market is the Falcon f-16 v3 it'll cost you $200 and it has 16 ports expandable up to 48 with the optional differential receiver modules the Falcon has excellent integration with exlights and it supports more LEDs per output than any other board it's a really good choice for someone who wants to dig into the Hobby and learn all about sequencing on the opposite end of the spectrum from the sand devices kit are they're ready to run kits from companies like holiday core oh that pre-assemble a Hinks pixpro controller a power supply watertight enclosure and sixteen waterproof lighting pigtails to get you started quickly and easily the preassembled packages lower the learning curve significantly and allow you to get up and running much quicker if you're worried about having enough time to set up your lights or you don't want to do all the wiring yourself then these preassembled kits definitely allow you to exchange a little bit of your money for a lot of your time I personally have both a Falcon controller and a Hanks pixpro and the great news is that picking one controller type doesn't lock you into a specific eco system because these controllers all speak a common language called e 131 speaking of e1 31 it's time to get some vocabulary out of the way in an all honesty this is the most confusing part of the Hobby so I'm gonna try to be as succinct as possible this pile of lights is called a pixel string or strand the strand contains 50 pixels that's these things inside each of these pixels is a red LED green LED and blue LED and turning them on at different brightnesses allows a pixel to generate over 16 million unique colors because each of these red green and blue sub pixels are controlled individually that means that a single pixel actually contains three controllable channels red green and blue and that means that my 50 pixel strand actually contains 150 131 channels in order to be controlled these channels need to be assigned to something called a universe which is a terrible name for what it actually is an addressable group of 512 channels because of this channel limit a medium to large show will include dozens of universes you don't have to have 512 channels in a universe that's just the maximum in fact you'll see that by default most universes only have 510 channels to find not 512 and that's because 512 is not divisible by 3 but 510 is if you have more than 170 pixels in a run it's going to require more than one universe to hold them but that doesn't really matter because these controllers can output multiple universes per port so to recap three channels makes a pixel 170 pixels can fit in the universe and controllers can output multiple universes per output connection now that you're an expert on LEDs controllers and a 131 terminology you can start thinking about your shows individual elements or props are you going to have LEDs on your windows and roof line or are you gonna stick to ground-based props are you gonna have one main focus of your show like a mega tree or are you gonna have a bunch of small things if you're just getting into the Hobby I highly recommend that you don't try to do it all at once don't attempt to make a show that's visible from space your very first year instead you can add a little more each year as you get more confident with the process this also helps keep the cost reasonable since you'll just be adding a little bit more each year my first year I permanently installed LED strips on my roof line built an LED wreath out of PEX tubing and made some simple animations using sheet microcontrollers last year I made PVC frames for my doors and windows to be able to easily put up and take down my seasonal lights and I sequence my first LED light show in Ex lights this year in honor of YouTube's team trees initiative I'm gonna be adding a few mini trees and a 13-foot mega tree to my show using the kits from holiday Korra I've also made a deal with holiday Korra to donate my Commission to the team trees initiative here on YouTube so if you use the links down in the description you'll be helping plant real trees as well as electronic ones to put the mega tree together your first step is going to be to spend roughly two hours pushing pixels through their mounting strips to create a total of 16 different strips I left one open hole at the top and five at the bottom but you may want to leave more room at the bottom to increase your ground clearance if you get a lot of snow make sure that the end with the connector is on the side with the five open holes and not the side with a 1 open hole a good pair of work gloves is an absolute must for this process next you'll need to head to your local big-box store and pick up around 100 feet of rope 20 landscaping stakes and two 10-foot lengths of fencing top rail these items added around $50 to the cost of my project I wanted my tree to be 13 feet tall and I wanted to hammer 3 feet of the pole into the ground for stability so I cut my piece of top rail to 6 feet picked a location in started hammering the mega tree comes with a milled plastic top piece that has slots to hold the pixel mounting strips using zip ties put each strip into the top mounting plate making sure that the pixels are facing outwards and tie on some lengths of rope to act as guide wires slip the mounting plate over the top of the uncut piece of rail and lift it on top of the section that you pounded it into the ground in this step it's helpful to have a second set of hands here to untangle the strip's while you hold the pole in place on the bottom of each strip there's a strain relief piece that gets attached by looping the strip around and securing it with a few zip ties I ended up needing to install my strain relief pieces backwards because the landscaping sticks that I chose were a bit too large to fit through the other hole pull each strip taut and stake it into the ground you can do fancy math here to figure out how far apart each strip should be but after trying to use a tape measure for the first few strips I just eyeballed the rest since this mega tree has 16 strands and the controller has 16 outputs you just screw together the pre-attached waterproof connectors in sequential order and your hiring is done because each run is only 50 pixels there's no need to run power injections so the wiring is literally as simple as it could possibly be now that the tree is up we need to wire our controller which just needs AC power and Ethernet the Hinks pixpro controller can be controlled directly from a computer's Ethernet port or it can be connected to a router or switch I suggest that you connected to your home network using a long Ethernet cable since the controller has automatic firmware updates whenever it's connected to the Internet the controller also has a nice on-screen display to let you do some testing in troubleshooting and it's also where you can select if you want your controller to automatically get an IP address from your network or if you want to force it on to a specific IP address if you don't know what this means then you probably want to choose the DHCP option once connected to a network the controller will show its IP address on the LCD panel you should write it down if you absolutely can't wait you can also use the controller to make your mega tree light up for the first time but we're pretty much ready to do that remotely so just hang tight start to finish the construction of this mega tree took me just over four hours and when I decided I was gonna make a mega tree I was expecting more like fifteen hours of work so being ready to sequence so soon was a very welcome surprise the next step involves a program called X Lights so go down to the link in the description download it and install step 1 and X lights is to choose the directory on your computer that will be your show directory this is really important so make sure that you remember where you put it next you need to add your controller so in the setup tab click add a 1:31 then select unicast and type the IP address of your controller if this is your first prop you can start at universe 1 but once your show gets bigger you'll want to make sure that your props don't have overlapping universes on the mega tree you have 16 strands of 50 pixels connected to 16 different outputs so for a number of universes you'll put 16 and since 50 pixels makes up a hundred and 50 channels you'll put 150 as the last channel press ok and then press save setup next we just need to double check the output settings on the controller if you ordered the standard mega tree package from holiday core oh those settings should be pre-populated but if you ordered an extra expansion board they may be different so head over to the IP address of your controller and select a 131 artnet on this screen you'll confirm that your settings reflect what we did in Ex lights so in this case universe is 1 through 16 150 channels per universe you'll see that this says that it's going to output from controller start channel 1 so we need to make sure that start channel 1 is mapped to the correct output so click on output settings SPI ports and ensure that the start channel 1 is mapped to the beginning of the first port and pixel count for each channel is 50 then just press Auto calc start channel and press save to activate your settings you'll need to go to the reset menu and press the big red reset button at this point you should be all set up and it's time to test out your lights so click on Tools and then test then select one or all of the outputs in your 1:31 profile you've just made and then click on background only and move the background brightness slider up and your tree should light up assuming that all went to plan it's time to tell X lights what our props look like so hit save and then go over to the Layout tab an accurate layout is very important for making your show look its best so go outside of the position where most people will be watching your show and take a fresh picture import the picture you just took as a background and then mess with the brightness and transparency until you can barely see the outline of your house next select the mega tree tool and draw your mega tree as close to the actual size and location as possible once you have it placed you'll need to edit the details the one from holiday Koro is round shape 180 degrees in 16 strings of lights with 50 LEDs per string I plugged out put one of my controller into the bottom left side of my tree and I want universe 1 channel 1 as my starting channel after pressing save the prop is ready now it's time to sequence and in my opinion sequencing is an absolute art form and for as many hours as I've spent in X lights I still don't feel completely happy with the sequences that I've produced myself the great news is that much like computer programming you can get pretty far just borrowing code from other people x lights has a maintained Google Drive of users shared sequences that you can browse through some may be your style and some may not but the point is that they're there and they're free for you to use to get started you're going to download a show so follow the link in the description and find a song you like I'm gonna use my favorite example which is Santa Claus has come into town by ski width and it was sequenced by Jason Rasmussen extract the zip file into a folder on your computer and then go back to exlights next in the setup tab click change show directory and then select the folder that you just extracted the sequence show to you should see someone else's controllers and props populate into the setup and layout tab next click on sequence and choose file open sequence then select the XML file for the show then click the render button and press play and enjoy the show but while you're enjoying pay attention to which props have a lot of effects associated with them on the timeline and write down the total number of props from this show that you want to use in your own after you've watched the fantastic show go to the setup tab and then change back to your show folder in the Layout tab since we only have one prop we want to give ourselves more places to import effects so if you decided that you wanted to import three props from the sequence show you're gonna need to add two additional groups and then just add your prop into those groups and hit save next click file new sequence select musical sequence and grab the music file from the ski wit folder choose 20 fps and hit quick start next is the magic part go to import import effects and select the sequence shows XML file on the right you'll see all the props from the sequence show and on the left you'll see all of your props and groups just click and drag effects into their corresponding groups and then hit OK after your import press render and click on a model or group on the timeline and press play to preview your show if your effects overlap in a way that you don't really like you can click on an element and choose edit display elements in this screen you can add additional groups or move layers up and down in exlights layers are rendered from the top to the bottom so stuff at the bottom of the list will overwrite stuff at the top of the list once you're completely happy with your sequence and setup just save then press play and hit that little bulb on the end it says output to lights then run outside and watch your breathtaking new mega tree dance to the music so that's it a start to finish mega tree in under 5 hours I've seen my neighbors take longer than that to staple icicle lights to their eats I'll be doing one more video this season on holiday light shows teaching more about making custom props scheduling shows integrating them with home assistant and transmitting your music via FM radio but if you can think of an absolutely crucial subject that I've missed make sure to let me know down in the comments so I can include it if you're completely new to LEDs I'd encourage you to check out my LED playlist to learn a little bit more about different types power injection and some tips and tricks for successful and long-lasting installations thank you to all my awesome patrons over at patreon for your continued support of both my channel and my LED obsession if you're interested in supporting check out the links down in the description if you're interested in supporting the environment as I mentioned earlier holiday Koro has offered me a commission for any props that are purchased via my links and I'll be donating 100% of those commissions between now and January 1st to the YouTube team trees initiative so constructing your mega tree can help plant real trees as well if you enjoyed this video please consider subscribing and as always thanks for watching the hook-up [Music]

Channel: The Hook Up

Views: 497,967

Keywords: home assistant, hassio, home automation, hass.io, diy, electronics, arduino, esp8266, nodemcu, wemos d1, automation, holiday, christmas, xmas, halloween, light, show, led, music, syncronized, synchronized, beginner, start, help, how to, first, pixel, controller, falcon, f16v3, hinkspix, hinks pix, alpha pix, sandevice, sandevices, mega, tree, megatree, coro, holidaycoro, holidaycoro.com, addressable, teamtrees, team trees, dance, prop, build, guide, beginners, pixels, ws2811, ws2812b, ws2813, ws2815, sk6812, node, wled, espixelstick

Id: 9I2PsgyKZPg

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019