David first began using pixels in stage lighting, and then decided to try it out on his house. The result? An urge to create useful and helpful information to help non-technical folks create great Christmas lighting with pixels on their homes!
I love having a Christmas light show at my house, but it sure wouldn’t be as much fun if I had to wait around for 5 pm every night to press “start” on my show! Luckily, my show runs automatically and yours can too. But how does it work? To automate your show each night […]
If you’ve spent any time hanging around Christmas light groups or forums online, then you might have heard a lot of talk about this “Raspberry Pi” and how people run their shows off of it. The Raspberry Pi is a small, Linux-based computer that you can use to run your Christmas lights display with a […]
The Falcon SmartReceiver is the new standard in “differential” receiver boards for Christmas light pixel controller boards like the Falcon F48, Falcon expansion boards and the F40-PB, F32-B and F8-B controllers from Kulp Lights. These receivers allow you to “daisy-chain” multiple boards together so that you can use all of the pixels available on each […]
Channeling my inner Clark Griswald, I connected my first set of pixel lights and turned them on to full in xLights, only to find that while many of my pixels looked great, there was a definite “fade” to a brown-ish/pink-ish color across my strings of new LED pixel lights. Perhaps you are running into this […]
When you’re making an animated Christmas light display, one key part is often the music. This allows you to make your light sync with the music you choose, and create a really impressive show! While it would be really cool to set up a big PA system and blast your tunes through the neighborhood, your […]
One of the biggest challenges of running a Christmas Light display is the weather! While we’d all love to be like Australia and enjoy the summer sun for our Christmas season, this simply isn’t reality! Keeping your display safe from the weather also doesn’t have to be difficult. There are proven ways to water-proof your […]
One of the most difficult parts of sequencing Christmas lights is the sequencing, or creating the patterns and motions in the lights which go to the music of your display. The good news is that sequences can be imported from other users, including sequences that you buy online. While the process isn’t super simple, it […]
We’ve all seen “that house” in our city that synchronizes it’s lighting to music, or perhaps watched an episode or 2 of “The Great Christmas Light Fight” and wondered – should I do that too? Should I sequence my Christmas Lights to music? If you’re going to take the time to make an elaborate Christmas […]
If you’re running a Christmas Light Show that includes pixels, then the signal that goes from your computer to your controllers runs over a network. Whether your display is simple, with just 1 controller, or complex with many controllers, the question still remains: should you run your display on your home network, or let it […]
When I first started sequencing Christmas lights, one of the first questions I had was “What type of computer do I need for xLights or Vixen?” At the end of the day, most modern computers will work great for either xLights or Vixen. A good starting point would be a dual-core processor with a speed […]
