Having seen some nice displays I am ready to attempt an animated display for 2017. As a beginner I have no idea where to start, proper names for the equipment, etc.
I tend to like the smaller dome style LED’s vs the C9 size if that makes any difference. I understand the concept of channels and how LED’s work. I enjoy wiring both low and high voltage, soldering, etc.
So anyone out there willing to give me a shove in the right direction? Thanks Frank
Do you mean for a Christmas specific display 
? I don’t know much about that specific end of things but this website might be helpful.
In the mean time get a little strip of ws2812Bs, and string of 2811 bullets, an arduino (or teensy or esp8211) and start playing. I always buy whatever I can from Adafruit at least the first time around. They have lots of easy to follow tutorials, many of which use FastLED.
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/wiki/index.php?title=Beginners_Guide
Not specific for Christmas. If successful I can see Halloween as well.
Thanks for the info. Will check it out later.
Have you worked with Arduino or coding before? If not start here by getting the Arduino IDE.
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage
Btw- correction- you’re looking for the technical terms for things and I’m confusing you more! It’s esp8266 not 8211. The bare chips are not what I would start with- adafruits huzzah boards or a wemos d1 are more user friendly
I agree, it’s best to start small and work up. A WeMos D1 mini (these are great if your likely add WiFi control later) or an Arduino Uno or Nano are good cheap boards to play with. Get a board or two and a few LEDs and play with them. WS2812s are readily available but can be slow. APA102s can be a little harder to find, are fast but can be problematic if you start to use 100s of them.
+1 for @Charity_Stolarz 's recommendation on getting a strip of WS2812Bs. They’re inexpensive and can give you a lot of practice and understanding of what the different code does. Then upload some FastLED code, see what it does… change things in the code and see what changes.
Make sure the final LEDs you work with are compatible with your local weather. I thought I did (tested a one meter strip for an entire winter) but ran into problems I need to try and surmount for next year.
And like ANY new pursuit, expect to make mistakes and be challenged – it just makes it that much sweeter when things do exactly what you want.
I read the specs on the WS2812B. I did not see any temperature specs on these. So I can learn from your experience, which LED’s failed due to the cold? Mistakes without learning is failure, mistakes with learning is success. I look forward to success.
I don’t think it’s the chip or LED per se. Right now, I’m guessing there was some bad surface-mount soldering, or some bad sections of the copper trace running through the strip. Whenever I ID’d a bad LED, pressing on it would make the strip work again… until I released pressure. The problem – for me – was having to remove entire sections to fix one LED. I used a modular system, but each module had the LED strip (inside the silicone tube) siliconed to an aluminum mounting strip. So each repair meant “surgery” on the silicone tube and that section of strip. I got tired of it and just turned it all off for now.
I might have an idea for mounting easy-to-remove and easy-to-replace sections of 5 LEDs for next year – but I need to try a few things. If that works, then I’ll reuse what I have to save some cash.
At this point, I would recommend the addressable strings that are specifically labelled for outdoor use – with or without the C9 cover. If that style is available with a replaceable LED (but I don’t think they are) so much the better. I understand they’re much more reliable than the strips.
I’m my experience WS2812Bs don’t like getting hot and don’t like getting wet… As @allanGEE said the pixels are often more reliable, partly because the IC is separate to the LED rather than inside it. The IC is therefore much bigger and this seems to make them much more reliable. The pixels are called WS2811s. Here’s an example…
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/32761557345/32761557345.html
Getting a bit aggravated here. I downloaded the Arduino program to my OS Sierra. Plugged in my Uno. Green light is steady and have a blinking orange near pin 13. When I open the program, I do not see the “tools” option anywhere. It appears Arduino is looking for Com 1. How do I get this program to recognize where I am connected on my MAC. If this is a problem, I can revert to Boot camp or my old Windows laptop.
Disregard last post. Operator error while in panic mode. Though I am sure I will have more posts. 
One of the Engineers at our workplace calls them DEU errors – Defective End User. I get/make a lot of them!
I am now the proud owner of an Arduino Uno Rev 3. Time to learn the programming language. I have until Sept 2017 to learn how to make an animated pumpkin display followed by falling snowflake display.