Most people who are interested in Christmas lighting may not have experience on soldering or wiring so this makes them very hesitant to even get started. With all of the electrical lingo, trying to learn how to wire something up can be enough to want to steer away from ever doing it.

However, is it possible to create an animated Christmas light show and avoid having to learn soldering and wiring? It actually is and here are my tops tips on how to avoid all of that.

In this post, I am going to share my favorite tools and different products that will help you avoid having to do anything with soldering and wires.

Scotchlocks

My favorite and the handiest tool to help me avoid any soldering would be the Scotchlocks. The cool thing about these is that they come from the telephone industry and you can shove the wires in and then use a tool to crimp them down. Your wires are connected!

I cover this more in a previous post  Scotchloks vs. Solder Sleeves vs. Soldering which covers all methods and shows you exactly how they work.

For times you need to cut wires and connect them, the Scotchlocks will be very handy and you can avoid having to do any soldering.

Custom Strings

Another method is if you're setting up pixels on your house and a standard pixel strand includes 50 pixels. But what if the area only needs 47 pixels, what do you do?

You can use the scotchlock method or you have the option to purchase custom strands. You can go to a company like Wally’s Lights and order a custom string of lights for your needs.

You can go to them or any vendor and let them know that you need a custom stand to light a specific prop or a vertical strand. Once you know the specific number of pixels needed they can customize the lights for you.

Pre-Built Controllers or Ready to Run Controllers

What about working the controllers? In most cases, I can just use my wire strippers and easily connect the wires to the terminal block on the controller. Perhaps that’s something you don’t feel comfortable doing yet, there’s a solution!

One of my favorite resources is using CCL Controllers and they offer pre-built controllers so that you don’t have to put anything together yourself.

Now, this will cost more to have someone build a custom controller for you but it takes away the time and wiring that you would have to do on your own. You can figure out what you need exactly and there are many custom options to choose from.

It comes with everything put together, wired, and ready to use.

Custom Extensions

Once you have the controller and pixels figured out, next you need extensions. Instead of trying to build your own and make it weather proof, I have personally found that just purchasing custom extensions is the way to go.

For the time it takes to make one and for the price, you’re better off just buying your own. It helps save you time and having to do it on your own.

With all of these options available, you can run a fun Christmas animated show without having to do any soldering and wiring. It's such a fun hobby and project to take on and this is a great way to get started if you’re hesitant about getting involved with the tech side of things.