Outdoor Christmas Lights....recommendations please

So a few pics of progress so far, all the dull but essential stuff, nothing outside yet.

The two external boxes are prepped and ready, they were a good buy as even included sticky Velcro which is perfect for the power strip and psu.

I’ve got sync working between two strips which appears to be good.

Have figured a noddy way to mount the boxes to our metal drain pipes with the aid of some cable ties!

Just need to hope the 10m lead is long enough to get to the right places but that’s tomorrow’s challenge

Have also added in a 5m length of mains flex to extend power to what will be the upstairs strip. No noticeable brightness drop as a result.

Also the 3M clips will be perfect as the strip can slip within the hook so don’t need to make any holes in the silicone at all.
So long as they stick them all good!

That’s the clips attached to the strip



Psu and strip in the box



Oh and whilst at b and q earlier I took a picture of this little lot, sure at least one of these will make an appearance at our home soon! Not the inflatables tho as when not on they flop all over the ground and look depressing!!


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Progress being made on the plugin, with a following wind I may get something posted tomorrow, at least for the brave.

today i installed about 40 feet of addressable LED strips on part of my house. I need to tidy up and move the controller board/PS which are currently dangling from my eave.

WLED is very fun, but I feel like Clark Griswold putting up lights in November. The nice thing is the strips are nearly invisible when off.

I learned WLED has some decent scheduling capabilities on its own. But the plugin will make this extra-sweet.

today i installed about 40 feet of addressable LED strips on part of my house. I need to tidy up and move the controller board/PS which are currently dangling from my eave.

WLED is very fun, but I feel like Clark Griswold putting up lights in November. The nice thing is the strips are nearly invisible when off.

I learned WLED has some decent scheduling capabilities on its own. But the plugin will make this extra-sweet.

Awesome nice work! Got any pics?! (So geeky I know lol)

Rain is definitely stopping play here in Devon, England today. Lashing it down so nothings getting installed today. Cloudy and dry day tomorrow so I’ll be getting them up then.

I’ve got a spare controller and strip so I’ll definitely be brave and try the plugin!

Anyone going the next step and adding music or sound into the mix?


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Bit of help needed.

Which way should I mount the leds on either side of the house?

Options:

1: all the same so leds ‘run’/chase clockwise around all windows

2: left side of house clockwise and right side of house anti clockwise so they run ‘towards each other’

Noddy diagram below if this doesn’t make sense.

Thoughts?




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Can you see both sets of lights/windows from inside the house at the same time?

If no, I vote all clockwise. If yes, I vote they chase each other.

No they wont be visible inside at all I don’t ‘think’ some glow maybe but we’ll always have curtains closed,

Blue skies in Devon now so hooks and strip up at one window, project box drilled and in place, might get this window wired up fully later on.


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I have just posted my initial version on GitHub. You can get to it https://github.com/neilkplugins/WLED-indigo-plugin/blob/master/README.md and it is very much quick and dirty, but functional and evolving very quickly. Some brief notes :-

1) It should install like a normal plugin. I don't really know what I am doing with GitHub, so any problems let me know, bit you should be able to download a release from the releases tab. The only plugin configuration right now is to turn debugging on or off.

2) You create a WLED device for each controller by IP Address, using the normal "New Device Model", and configure an IP Address.

3) The device you create should operate as a dimmer, and responds to the UI controls as well as the universal actions for a dimmer (On/Off/Toggle/Set Brightness/Dim by/Brighten by). These impact the WLED Master Dimmer as I think that makes the most sense. I will soon get the primary RGB settings in the native Indigo device (when I figure out what I am doing wrong), with secondary RGB configurable by a Set Secondary R/G/B action. These colours are used as a base for some effects.

4) I have created WLED Actions to Set Effect by name, Set effect Intensity and Set Effect Speed - both of these are currently not validated and expect a value in the range 1- 255. I will look to add Palette actions. and ultimately all of the things that make sense and can be controlled by the API. This will be a function of time and everyones requirements (I haven't played too much yet with the WLED itself).

5) Each WLED device state is available for inspection on the device. I have done zero testing here other than the states that I have actions for. I will add text states for Effects, Palettes and other things that make sense and that you may want to expose to a control page or otherwise. Let me know I have have missed something. I know Palette is not updating. I currently poll every 60 seconds, but will add a configuration option for this (and you can change in in the plugin manually if you want to make it more responsive to reflect changes from the WLED app)

I have no idea what impact the polling has on the WLED/NodeMCU, especially with longer strip lengths (testing to date has been on a single 5m strip with 150 LEDS)

The code is really ugly and I will be optimising, adding error checking and validation and generally learning how to do things properly, but given people seemed keen to get going then I focussed on getting something done.

Enjoy, I will keep working on it and will try and be responsive to any questions. I guess we can use this thread for now for questions, I have requested a sub forum (but that was only today) .

Neil

The hookup also has some great information as well. https://youtu.be/QnvircC22hU


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@neilk you are the man! My ESP arrived today, so pumped.

The plugin installed just fine and setup was simple. The on/off/dim works perfectly. That's all i've tried so far.

Thank you for working on this. it is and will be great!

Great to hear and thanks for the feedback. New versions will come reasonably frequently, once I crack my understanding of JSON, but that is partly why I am doing this. I added new version that :-

1) Allows you to change the frequency of polling of the WLED/NodeMCU in case we swamp it with requests, or if during testing you need to see changes reflected in the states more than once a minute

2) Added states for primary and secondary RGB effect colours, only the primary's update right now but I tidied the naming up


Going to relax now, looked at a screen too much today but actually really enjoyed the learning.

awesome. just be sure to correct your spelling of the word 'color'.


just kidding!

I will do my best to optimise that