We have put on a synchronized light show for the past two years. This page explains some of the design aspects of our show. Check out our current year’s page for completely updated information.

Lights on House:

  • Hope, Love, Joy and Peace Words: Cut out of Plywood and painted. They use 297 RGB nodes.
  • Star on Porch: Made out of aluminum using Forney 46111 Easy Flo Brazing Rod‘s. Contains 88 nodes of 30/10 RGB strip. Power is injected in middle of star and at end.
  • Star Tree: Utilizes HolidayCoro’s mounting strip and home made topper and base. Each section is 10 feet long and contain 30 nodes of 30/10 RGB strip. Power is injected every other column of lights.
  • Sign: Our sign is comprised of 18 P10 panels forming an approximately 1.5′ by 6′ sign. The frame for this sign is 1×4 pressure treated boards and has plexiglass on the front to prevent water intrusion.
  • Candles: Uses HolidayCoro’s candle design (40.5″). Each candle contains 11 square modules in the base and 4 in the flame.
  • Candle Wreath: Uses Brilliant Bulms mounted on C9 yard stakes purchased at Home Depot.
  • Roof Outline: Uses 46 Brilliant Bulb’s mounted on mounting strip and held on gutter by store bought lighting clips (zip tied to strips).
  • Columns, Window and Door Outline: Utilizes 30/10 RGB strip mounted via zip tie and double sided tape to 1/2″ PVC pipe. Each column has 22 nodes while the door uses 50 nodes while the windows use 42 and 48.
  • Door Wreath: Uses 10 Rectangle Modules mounted to a wreath.
  • Floods: Nine 10 watt RGB floods wired to a HolidayCoro 30 channel DMX controller. This is a very well built controller. These are powered by a 120watt outdoor power supply and mounted in a utility enclosure.
  • There are also 13 strands of 120 volt lights including: icycles, garland, red/green/blue/white strands and a 200 count white strand.
  • The Arches are made from 98.75″ of 1″ PEX mounted with 5′ of 1/2″ emt using bent mounting brackets. They are strung with 1/2 a string of 30/10 pixel strip.
  • The Mini Trees are from Boscoyo Studios. Each one is strung with 70 pixels (7×10) and have a 20 pixel star.
  • The Snow Flakes are from Boscoyo Studios. Each have either 48 or 36 nodes. I modeled this myself, which you can find here.
  • The Mega Tree has 20 strings with 30 pixels each (600 total). The strips and topper come from Holiday Coro. The 23″ star is from Boscoyo Studios. The tree is mounted onto a 1″ EMT pole with a 1/2″ PVC ring holding the strips out on the bottom. Most important, I have 3 guy wires holding the tree upright in the wind.

Church

  • The church has 4 strands of 120 volt lights including: 2 angels, wreath and garland.
  • Small Flood: 20 watt flood light controlled by a mixture of two products: 3 channel DMX controller and 4 channel DMX controller. These controllers come in either 350ma or 700 ma configurations but are changeable by soldering two pads together. These are 24 volt lights and I use a MeanWell power supply. I use constant current controllers on both these and the 50 watt floods so I didn’t have to figure out what resistors to use in the circuit. For the RGB chips, I cut the common anode side and used 6 wires to supply power.
  • Large Floods (2): 50 watt flood light controlled as above but in 700ma configuration as opposed to 350ma.

Controllers:

  • LynxExpress 16 channel (on house for 120v lights)
  • Lynx SSR4 with DMX (on church for 120v lights) connected wirelessly to house DMX.
  • AlphaPix 4 (backup, controls 459 channels of RGB lights). I had some problems with this controller at the beginning of the year with random flashing. This was fixed in the last firmware update.
  • Falcon F16v2 (main controller, uses 4488 channels). This is a great controller and I have had no problems with it. It supports differential boards with I plan on using next year.

Power Supplies:

Software and Computers:

If you have questions as to anything I did, please feel free to ask as this is a DIY community and as I have received help from others I am glad to help as well.

Plans for 2018:

  • Pixel Icicle lights for the house
  • Boscoyo Modular Matrix Panels (4x 160 pixels) for house columns.
  • Pixelaria’s for sidewalk at church
  • More mini trees for church
  • 46″ star for church
  • Shooting stars for roof of house
  • More pixels on church, railing, bushes, etc.

What we added in 2017:

  • RGB arches
  • Small pixel trees
  • I may try to build a P10 panel setup
  • Increase number of strands in tree on roof
  • Looking further ahead I would like to build a 15-20ft mega tree for the left side of the church.