A lot of people (especially those on TV) use non-standard lights of all sorts in their Christmas Light display’s. In this video, I cover (3) ways to use lights that aren’t your run-of-the-mill pixels.

Often you will see people who have all kinds of things in their displays. There are so many unconventional items that you can use these days to spice up your display that would make it a bit more unique than other shows.

Flood Lights

You can find flood lights in pretty much any location that sells lighting. The cool thing about using these type of lights is that if you buy a flood light that is pixel based there is essentially zero extra configuration.

Some of these newer models have x-connect on them so that you can plug them into a regular pixel controller. Just keep in mind that they will use more wattage than your standard pixel light. They are available in typically 10-30 watts and they work incredibly well.

When it comes to modeling flood lights in xLights you literally have free range to make them however you want, anywhere from an individual pixel and up. The sky is the limit.

Pixel 2 Things

Another way to get non-standard items to work within xLights is Pixel2Things. Pixel2Things is a really cool concept that is growing in the industry. It allows you to set up all sorts of things as a pixel in xLights.

Another great feature of a lot of these Pixel 2 Things is that they generally take in power separately so you are able to put it at the end of a run of pixels where you would want to do power injection anyway and it’s got its own useable power. One less thing to worry about!

Whether it be AC or DC it will work along with Pixel 2 Things as long as it takes power. That gives you so much more of an opportunity to get creative with your display and what you choose to use in it.

DMX Lights

When it comes to DMX lights you have a variety of options from the Dominar Beam to mount on your roof for a really unique look, or LED Pars that are used to shoot a fairly narrow beam of light up your trees, and so much more.

The cool part about any of these lights is that you can control them without any extra hardware. Pretty much any pixel controller that you can get today have somewhere on them a DMX output. This means that you can control any DMX light from within x-Lights in a variety of ways without having to stress about locating and setting up additional hardware.

One other great feature is that the power comes separate from the data so when you are dealing with really high powered stuff in your display, rather than having a mess of power supplies and power injectors, you can save yourself the trouble and not worry and know that everything will run smoothly.

Closing

Exploring xLights and learning the awesome features within it opens up a ton of options on how you can make your show even better. Learning how to control some rather a-typical display items can be a lot of fun as well as expand your creative options so that your display can be more unique and engaging.