Continuing to plan my FastLED Christmas lights on the exterior of my house. I’d like to place the Teensy and power supplies in the garage. I don’t think I’ll have power issues since I’ll be running 12-volt lines and stepping it down to 5 volts just before the strip.
However, does anyone think I’ll have any trouble with running long signal wires? I don’t think I’ll have to run anything longer than 50 feet/15 meters. I’m in the process of getting some Cat6 cable to give it a try, but it never hurts to check with those who may have gone before me.
I don’t have much to add for the signal lines since I use all wireless data BUT I figured I would add that the 12v - 5v plan is a good one. Might even consider 24V if you are going to invest in the DC to DC converters. I run 3 24V 250W supplies to power all of my 5v pixels with DC to DC and it works great!
For long data line runs I’ve heard of people placing a single “null” pixel somewhere in between the MCU and the first (visible) pixel. This null pixel acts as a repeater and it can be covered up with tape or something so it’s not visible. The first visible pixel will become leds[1] instead of leds[0], but for most patterns this isn’t an issue.