re: Permanently installed LED "Christmas" lights.

quote:

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im debating on building my own Dig-Uno vs buying the premade ones. at 25 bucks, thats pretty steep. But building and getting the parts slow boated from china might not be gotten until the new year.

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I have built a few, but they are not nearly as sophisticated as Quindor's Dig products.

If you are just doing basic stuff, all you need are some protoboard and a level shifter, and depending on the ESP you use, you might not even need the level shifter. Also, a lot of people don't even use a protoboard, they just directly solder together.

What’s the ballpark cost for a DIY on this?

I have about

$100 in LED's (40M in my case)
$25 5V 60 amp/300W power supply
$50 18awg 3 strand hook up wire
$80 Aluminum Channels to hold the strips
$25 project box to hold everything
$10 MCU (controller)
$10 protoboard (I got a bunch only used 1).
$20 other odds & ends

So about $300 for me. I'm also spending about another $200 to rent a cherry picker. But my roof line is pretty high and steep. I didn't think I could do the soldering and the other stuff on top of a 25+' ladder. If your house isn't that high or you had good help, you might not need to do that.

FWIW, I think the strings would be easier to install.

The cost of this project is still cheaper than a trip to the ER...

Ok, here's what I learned today.

Being on top of a 35' boom lift sucks if you don't particularly like heights. lol.

So I didn't get finished yesterday. I got all the stuff on the high points installed, but I ran out of time of the low stuff.

Even tho I don't like the form factor, if I had to do it again, I might go with the strings. The strips were fine, but hard to solder 30' in the air. If I had to do it over, there were certain runs I could have done in advance, and it would have been much easier to do on the ground.

Also, while I like the look of the aluminum channels, they were awfully difficult to snap on and stay snapped on. I used larger 3 strand 18awg wire for my power injection and I'm sure this had something to do with it. I had a few long runs to make so this was a trade off.

I figure I have a 4-5 hours of work left, but I'm being pretty methodical on the install. Of course this was my estimate yesterday as well.

i like the look of strips better than strings. string just look like typical lights and do not do the animations very well.

ha. good luck. im still debating on what to do with my house. i have a huge oak in my front yard that would hide most of the lists in the front.

got 3 Dig Unos built last night before i ran out of resistors in my book. So i just ordered more. should have 10 total made no clue what im going to do with all of them. haha

once i get them all built and tested ill let you know.

dat