How To - Mount Pixel Props to Garage Door

[@TheSoundmanPete]

When I saw the magnet I was going to suggest a backing but see your using painters tape. Bare magnets on metal will rust. They build up moisture behind them. Good job !

[@CounterHolidayLights]

another great video.. love magnets

[@richardcdldriver]

Thanks great tip and explanation

[@davidcase4600]

Good fun. Random power balancing thought... consider adding a single v+ line from your first prop to your last. Also volunteer a vid for the virtual christmas summit!

[@NiFamilyLights]

David, you are absolutely correct! If I power balance from the first prop to the last prop, that would certainly help. I wired the bats this way to keep things simple for me, as I wire the snowflakes in a similar fashion using the same custom cables. And yes, I’m working on a talk for the Virtual Christmas Summit this year.

[@ronaldcarey5708]

Hey Steve, good job with the videos. Very informative to a noob like me. I must say I sure am enjoying this hobby, but lordy is it expensive to start from scratch! A question...when you do power injection tees, are you disconnecting the power coming in, and then re-supplying new power to the next thing.? In other words are the red and black wires cut there, only the red wire, or is it just spliced in and continues on? I bought some power injection tees (2-prong) and it seems that they test with continuity at all three ends of the pigtail, with no isolation of the through-input to the through-output.

[@NiFamilyLights]

Hi Ronald, glad the videos are helpful for you. Yes, it is pricy to get into this hobby. I’d say it’s like any other hobby with a potentially large upfront cost to get started. It also depends on how big you want to go your first year. And the first year is the hardest. With some good planning, hopefully you don’t end up redoing everything in subsequent years so the costs can be amortized year after year. The “hidden” costs are your time every year sequencing songs, doing setup, and breaking things down. On to your question, when I power inject, I always separate the V+ between pixels at the point where I power inject. So, power is isolated from one section to the next. I do this for multiple reasons, 1) you can power inject across different power supplies, 2) when planning power to stay well below the 5A fuse - you won’t run into issues where you exceed the 5A due to unknown power draw across props 3) doing so simplifies wiring you purchase abs have on hand (all my power injection Tees are the same) and 4) like 3 i standardized everything to use the same 3 core wire 10’ pre made or 3 core wire custom made wires. That being said, plenty of people do power injection that allows V+ to flow both directions. That’s fine too as long as it’s accounted for in your power calculations AND that you do it in a way where you aren’t linking two different power supply V+ terminals together. Good luck!

[@gixster92]

im new to this game but I love the garage door idea. Where did you get the snowflakes? And I see in your more recent videos, you have 7 on the door and more on the house. do you run all on same controller or separate them?

[@NiFamilyLights]

Welcome to the hobby. I've tried several methods to attach these props to a garage door in the past and the magnets are by far the easiest and most convenient way to do it. The snowflakes are 48 node 24" Boscoyo snowflakes (boscoyostudio.com). For the 7 on the door, all the snowflakes are linked together and are run off of a single output from a Falcon F16v3 controller. For the snowflakes on the house, the two on the left are connected to the two windows above it, all of which are run from a single controller output. And for the snowflakes on the right side, the controller output runs the top right two windows, then runs to the 3 snowflakes, and then runs to the lower 2 windows...all from a single controller output. That controller is sitting on the portico roof right above the front door.

[@gixster92]

@@NiFamilyLights I don't know if this "Proper" but I just installed Xlights and im playing with my house view. Oddly I am using your design to play with so I can show the wife a working (virtually) design before I put the time, money and effort in starting to build this out. Any way I you can give me a basic sequence to work. or is there a method (discord, fb or other) that I may reach out?

[@NiFamilyLights]

@gixster92 I think you're doing it the right way by starting with xLights, dropping an image of your home in, and dropping various props onto your home to figure out what you'd like to do. Once you have a plan, you can then figure everything else out. Feel free to hit me up on FB Messenger Facebook.com/NiFamilyLights

[@mourisyounan9998]

Thanks Ni for the vedio This might work also with matrix.I do have the magnet and the same garage door style,but the magnet doesn’t stick very strong. My concern is they might shift or move with opening and closing the door ?

[@NiFamilyLights]

You’re welcome. This method works for props that aren’t too heavy. A matrix can be significantly heavier, but if you have enough magnets, it might just work. Let us know how it goes with a matrix.

[@douglashigley9556]

Thanks for all your help and info. This has been great. I am now getting ready to mount and power my controllers. However, I'm not sure how. Can you talk about how you get power to all the different controllers and if you needed any new breakers or separate electrical panels? Thanks. D.

[@NiFamilyLights]

You’re welcome. Thanks for the comment. I can cover AC power and lessons learned in a future video. I do have dedicated circuits which was a benefit of finishing and wiring the garage the way I wanted. I use 3 dedicated 20 amp circuits for everything, running a total of twelve 350W 12V power supplies for the controllers abs pixels and four 300W 5V power supplies for the P10 panels. No additional panels were required.

[@jaybennett315]

Great video! I would like to mount props on my 30 degree slanted tile roof. It is quite a challenge. Have you any suggestions?

[@NiFamilyLights]

Thanks Jay. I don’t have any props sitting on flat open areas of my roof. I have seen folks make bent EMT or PVC frames to attach the coro props. They anchored down the frame using sand bags on the base.

[@williammontoya6389]

Did you say you're using Cat6 cable from prop to prop? Can we do that? I had such a hard time last year (my 1st year) getting stable data and power over long runs.

[@williammontoya6389]

I withdraw the question. I just found your video from 2021 on building custom extension cables. Thanks..

[@NiFamilyLights]

Yes, I said I was using Cat5e (exterior UV rated) cable from prop to prop. I made custom cables for these runs since what I needed to connect prop to prop here was much shorter than using pre-made 10’ cables. See the video linked in the description on how-to make custom pixel extension wires. I show how I wired up the cat cabling internally so you can use it effectively. The custom cat cables actually perform better than the pre-made extensions. However, it takes much more time to make them. There are other cable options shown in that video. I’m curious how you wired the 8 internal cat wires to the 3 pixel wires and if you wired them similar to the way I do.

[@djlightsaberflimdirectoria3416]

How have you been doing

[@NiFamilyLights]

Hey there DJ, doing well. It’s been a while since my last video. Running 2 light shows with a regular job just doesn’t leave much time to work on vids. ;) It’s good to get some more vids from my list started.