The software you need for holiday overdecoration
dbos.dev
dbos.dev
Lots of animated displays in New England: https://www.nelights.org/
1215 Venetian Way, Columbus, OH 43230
https://www.pacificnwchristmaslights.com/index/
A lot of the houses with the music icon have the type of setup shown in the linked article.
But at the end of the day it's the same as house, you just have a much smaller canvas to work with.
You'll want to look up the ESPixelStick to get started if you're in an apartment, it can probably meet all your needs, since you won't be able to do too many lights.
I still think it’s an idea worth considering in some situations though, as long as you are sure it’s compliant with rules from the landlord and fire safety regulations etc.
But I've definitely seen people build a false wall that covered 1/2 of a real wall to make fake builtins over a fake fireplace. But they could take it with them when they left.
It might take several days, or even a couple of weekends if you have busy days during Mondays to Fridays, to disassemble it. And that’s if you originally built the whole thing in one go and kept in mind and made notes of how to disassemble it.
The worst situation is if your lease suddenly ends on short notice and you don’t have time to disassemble it on the time you have left before you have to leave.
Another thing is that even if you disassemble it on time, the dimensions of your frame probably won’t fit well into the next room you rent in a different place. And then you have to do a bunch of cutting and maybe buying even more materials or throwing away some of what you had, or find somewhere to store it or something.
There’s also the possibility that you might accidentally damage the original floor or walls even though you try to be super careful, if you go about constructing such a thing.
These sorts of potential complications are part of the reason that I ended up not actually building such a thing myself so far. Aside from also not having much in terms of extra cash on hand at the time to even go buy the materials I would have needed for it.
The half wall you suggested is far more practical for sure.
Here is a link to a photo of my balcony in San Francisco during the initial stages of the virus
One side effect of my overdecorating is that it’s inspired my neighbors to put up some lights. More lighted houses every year!
Of particular note is the Christmas tree, which as far as we can tell originated in the (decidedly non-pagan) 16th century: "The earliest mention of customs like Christmas trees are actually ascribed to Martin Luther. The story goes that during a winter evening stroll Luther was overcome by the brilliance of the stars in the night sky, painting the background over the evergreen forests. In order to capture that moment Luther cut down and erected a tree in the main hall of their house, covering its branches with lighted candles" (Bruce David Forbes, Christmas, a Candid History, 50).
Overall, specific rituals aside, having a big family celebration around the winter solstice really seems to do wonders for the mental health of people at high latitudes- and has been done consistently since long before Christianity. As a parent in a non Christian family, I find it to be incredibly valuable and important and I take it pretty seriously, but without any sense of it being religious.
Every year, some people need to marginalize Christianity's contribution to Christmas despite ample evidence to the contrary. I attribute it to an ignorance of how religion digests culture and evolves, plus the usual resentment towards that religion in particular.
Or as long as you over decorate once a year is good enough?
Some will spend all their time building and then buying sequences.
I personally end up buying sequences because I run out of time. I've made them before, but they take about 50 hours to make one song. I sadly don't have that kind of time, so I spend all my time making and then shortcut the end so that all the making serves a purpose.
It's somewhat akin to taking a midi file and setting various instruments to the various channels in the file
I got started in Dec 2020 when I couldn’t go anywhere and my show grows every year.
I’ll admit it is a time sink. I’ve probably spent 120+ hours on it (and my wife has contributed 20ish hours as well)
I want to do something small for next year.
You install them along the trim of your house, like you would with traditional lights. You can then use them for all sorts of things. Flag colors for patriotic holidays. Bright pastels for spring. Christmas can be any mix of red green and white, hanukkah can be blue and white, etc
They let you start soft, with something that doesn't need xlights, just a simple controller and the lights, so you get the feel for the hardware side of things, and you canuse them all the time
I wrote a blog post[1] about how I got mine set up. My show this winter isn't very big, consisting of only a spinner (big circular pattern of pixels), megatree (big cone shaped light "tree") and the house lights, but some of my friends in the area go all out with spotlights and moving components and even pyrotechnics
[1]: https://pdx.su/blog/2024-08-10-diy-permanent-xmas-lights/
They are sold by a variety of vendors, but generally you're gonna look for the 3-pixel 30mm pucks. They come in either cold-white or warm-white varieties, and a slew of different voltages.
You can buy a whole "kit" from the same vendor I bought my stuff from here[1], or the individual lights[2] and the tracks[3]
You can also buy similar products from some US local stores, like WasatchLights[4], YourPixelStore[5], or from Gouley[6], who appear to be the original manufacturers of these. But I've had good luck with PaulZhang's store on AliExpress, so its the one I can attest to.
[1]: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806033455595.html
[2]: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807344866216.html
[3]: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804734568668.html
[4]: https://wasatchlights.com/products/permanent-track-lights
[5]: https://yourpixelstore.com/product/pucks-set-of-5-30mm/
Then you'll need LEDs. My favorite vendor for LEDs is Wally's Lights[0], but there are others. The big choice you have to make is 12v vs 5v. Most people do 12v because you can make a much longer string of lights before you have to do what's called power injection, which is where you splice in a power boost. However 12v lights obviously use more power. Also, most of the pre-built things are 12v. I actually use primarily 5v, but at this point I'm about 1/3 12v because I got props from other people.
You're actually starting at exactly the right time, all the vendors do big sales in January.
Then you'll need something to put the pixels into. There are lots of options here. Strips, props, grids. After you watch some videos you'll have a better idea of what you want. Also after you figure out your layout.
Then you need to get Xlights[1]. Xlights is actually a good place to start, because it gives you an idea of what kind of things you can make. You can actually start with putting a layout on Xlights to see what you want to buy.
But, before all that, you'll want to learn. These are my favorite YouTube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@CanispaterChristmas
https://www.youtube.com/@NiFamilyLights
Watch some of the starter videos to get an idea before you buy anything. :)
This is incorrect. The same number of lights at the same brightness will use give or take the same wattage. The increase in voltage leads to a decrease in amperage. Larger installs should actually use slightly less power because the higher voltage loses less to resistance in the wires, the same reason utility-scale power distribution is done at higher voltages than anyone actually uses.
There are some individual "12v" LEDs that are just a lower voltage LED plus a big resistor to bring 12v down to a level the LED can survive which do obviously waste a lot of power but that would be a really silly design for a multi-LED assembly.
But yet it's how every one of the LED lights that we are talking about are designed. So like I said, 12v will use more power.
Those strips should use slightly less power for a given number and brightness of LEDs than their lower voltage counterparts because the higher voltage is losing less power to resistance over a given distance, same as high voltage transmission lines.
Like this:
https://wallyslights.com/collections/12v-pixels/products/12v...
I will never be one, but I really appreciate all you fanatics going completely crazy with the lights etc. :D
Unless you're really close to your neighbors and they're all on board, I feel my neighbors wouldn't want the extra attention on our street.
6516 Jackson Ct, Rocklin, CA 95765
It's basically an entire Christmas light show, synced with music which is broadcasted on an FM radio station. The main problem is that because few people have access to an FM radio outside of their car, it pretty much causes traffic chaos in that little cul de sac, and the best view requires you to not be in a car.