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WLED stair project - 2 flights and a spiral stairway
Posted on 10/2/26 at 1:27 pm
Posted on 10/2/26 at 1:27 pm
esteemed TD friends, once again i come to you..hat in hands..beseeching your advice.
so for my friend's house that i've already done a ridiculous amount of infrastructure for; he's just received the white oak treads for 2 flights (basement to 1st, 1st to 2nd) plus he has 90% assembled the metal spiral stairway to the turret.
so i think i have it 'plumbed' correctly..luckily basement ceiling is still open and not full of carbonite like every single wall in the house already has so if we work 'down' from 2 to 1 and end up at bottom of stairs, he's right above the basement ceiling. likewise, we work UP from the bottom of basement stairs to TOP, we'll also be under the top stair..in the open basement ceiling.
no brainer to run wiring (with proper voltage/length) across the trusses to his basement server room and patch in the poe controllers to the switch and power whatever we need.
likewise for turret i had him put an ethernet jack in that little crow's nest room so we'll work from second floor up spiral stairs to turret room and then the wiring will only need to go about 6" to get to that ethernet jack. we'll figure it out..probably some kind of controller box or something to hide things.
anyway, so i'm at the point where i need to figure out what kind of LED strips to buy and what other suggestions y'all might have. lots of things out there.
under treads or along trim? or both?
some cool effects both ways but wondering if any of you baws have done this and can recommend or NOT recommend different options.
so for my friend's house that i've already done a ridiculous amount of infrastructure for; he's just received the white oak treads for 2 flights (basement to 1st, 1st to 2nd) plus he has 90% assembled the metal spiral stairway to the turret.
so i think i have it 'plumbed' correctly..luckily basement ceiling is still open and not full of carbonite like every single wall in the house already has so if we work 'down' from 2 to 1 and end up at bottom of stairs, he's right above the basement ceiling. likewise, we work UP from the bottom of basement stairs to TOP, we'll also be under the top stair..in the open basement ceiling.
no brainer to run wiring (with proper voltage/length) across the trusses to his basement server room and patch in the poe controllers to the switch and power whatever we need.
likewise for turret i had him put an ethernet jack in that little crow's nest room so we'll work from second floor up spiral stairs to turret room and then the wiring will only need to go about 6" to get to that ethernet jack. we'll figure it out..probably some kind of controller box or something to hide things.
anyway, so i'm at the point where i need to figure out what kind of LED strips to buy and what other suggestions y'all might have. lots of things out there.
under treads or along trim? or both?
some cool effects both ways but wondering if any of you baws have done this and can recommend or NOT recommend different options.
Posted on 10/2/26 at 1:28 pm to CAD703X
ignore the god awful music (or mute it) and trashy carpeted stairs 
looking for where to put the LEDs
looking for where to put the LEDs Posted on 10/2/26 at 1:30 pm to CAD703X
cant find any decent YT videos of spiral stairway LED installs. they are all super shitty videos like this one.
Posted on 10/2/26 at 4:27 pm to CAD703X
Just use all 12v at least. ws2811 fine if you don’t mind 3x led per pixel. Otherwise ws2815 gives 1x pixel per led full resolution.
Poe is fine for cabinet and accent lighting but isn’t going to cut it for big outdoor effects. Most of my indoor stuff is PoE and works fine but the most LEDs per controller inside i have is like 210 or 3.5 meters at 60/m. Using 25w 802.3at splitters. I just started outdoor and using 12/2 CMR control wire to a 400w supply inside.
Also at 60 led/m, even 5m is pushing it at 12v. I made a 6 meter run and the last meter starts acting up sometimes when I turn the brightness all the way up. I’ll need to inject.
You’ll probably want real rcbww if you’re using these for actual primary illumination and not just accents or effects. Or even just white only strips with PWM control.
Poe is fine for cabinet and accent lighting but isn’t going to cut it for big outdoor effects. Most of my indoor stuff is PoE and works fine but the most LEDs per controller inside i have is like 210 or 3.5 meters at 60/m. Using 25w 802.3at splitters. I just started outdoor and using 12/2 CMR control wire to a 400w supply inside.
Also at 60 led/m, even 5m is pushing it at 12v. I made a 6 meter run and the last meter starts acting up sometimes when I turn the brightness all the way up. I’ll need to inject.
You’ll probably want real rcbww if you’re using these for actual primary illumination and not just accents or effects. Or even just white only strips with PWM control.
Posted on 10/2/26 at 6:47 pm to Dallaswho
i wanted poe to power the controller; i assume i'll have a regular 12v adapter plugged into the wall for everything else. i just dont want any nonsense with wifi or anything. if it can be hard-wired, its getting hard-wired.
Posted on 10/2/26 at 7:42 pm to CAD703X
Ya hardwiring is nice but I don’t know if it as is well-supported. On WiFi I will occasionally miss a UDP sync but not if I put the master on retransmit UDP. Thats only important for sync which is fire-and-forget with only retransmit option. Regular control is tcp and rock solid on WiFi.
Posted on 10/3/26 at 11:08 am to Dallaswho
Also sync really sucks. Maybe because I have 3x cabinet controllers and the master is one up, two down and the other two are one up, one down so only two segments but the numbers match up. Works 98% of the time but had some pain switching to Halloween for October. Whenever you make a new preset, also the controllers change your led preferences to use that new preset for default power on mode even if previously set to LEDs off upon power on.
Posted on 10/3/26 at 12:17 pm to CAD703X
I mean it's your house but damn not everything needs to be modded
Posted on 10/3/26 at 4:45 pm to SG_Geaux
It's not my house and it's brand new construction and the owner wants LEDs on his stairs for safety lighting so it's a pretty simple ask.
Posted on 10/3/26 at 6:34 pm to CAD703X
FIFY
Those are horrible.
quote:
the owner wants LEDs on his stairs for ghetto lighting
Those are horrible.
Posted on 10/3/26 at 8:21 pm to Stexas
Those are random yt videos baw, not his install. They'll look just fine. We are using premium components all around.
Posted on 10/4/26 at 9:15 am to CAD703X
I don’t have light recommendations for you, but how cool would it be to add a sensor on each step that identifies the direction of the person on the step and lights up the step as you ascend or descend the stairs? No idea how this would be aesthetically practical- you would need a super discreet sensor and individually addressable leds (which you will likely already be using).
Posted on 10/4/26 at 11:48 am to BR Tiger
We're doing a variation of that. One sensor at top and one at bottom. If it's tripped the stairs light will come on and it will do that but it's simulated. We'll just work on the timing so it handles 99% of stair approaches but not if you stop halfway up. It won't trigger until they're on the first stair to avoid someone standing at the bottom of the stairs talking or using their phone or something.
It's all about dialing it in. The tiny motion sensors will be invisible and they're wired so no battery replacement slop.
Local control ensures no delays or lag in response.
Lights come on regardless for safety. The "stair by stair" movement is just controlling brightness of each series of LEDs to look like it's in sync with your steps.
ETA business during the day and party at night. All 3 runs will follow the same on/movement up/down in soft white but the basement stairs are out of the way so we're going to get more crazy on that (that last video above where there's a single white comet flying up or down.
Color is overrated so we'll use that only as appropriate or special events.
I'll get videos of all 3 runs when done and it will make sense.
Hell we're still a couple weeks out still for power turning on.
It's all about dialing it in. The tiny motion sensors will be invisible and they're wired so no battery replacement slop.
Local control ensures no delays or lag in response.
Lights come on regardless for safety. The "stair by stair" movement is just controlling brightness of each series of LEDs to look like it's in sync with your steps.
ETA business during the day and party at night. All 3 runs will follow the same on/movement up/down in soft white but the basement stairs are out of the way so we're going to get more crazy on that (that last video above where there's a single white comet flying up or down.
Color is overrated so we'll use that only as appropriate or special events.
I'll get videos of all 3 runs when done and it will make sense.
Hell we're still a couple weeks out still for power turning on.
This post was edited on 10/4/26 at 12:42 pm
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