Hey y’all. I’m looking for some recommendations on the led product that might look the best. I saw a $10 box of lights with colors and patterns called Tree Dazzle. I’m already using a string I cobbled together that winds around my Christmas tree with ~80 ws2812, but I really like the idea of a central, easy to hang ring with strings cascading down. My trees are usually 6-7 feet tall. With all that in mind, what kinda strips, how long, and what amount of led p/m (density) do you guys think would offer a good balance of coverage and cost? And hey, if ya know of any good deals on said strips, I’m all ears.
For a tree you might want to go with 12mm bullets. You can find them everywhere. If you can wait, you can buy them from Ray Wu. Or if you are impatient you can get them off Ebay. I just bought 500, 12V for $150 shipped. You might do better than 30 cents a pixel somewhere else, but I consider free shipping and 1 week delivery it was hard to beat. Message me privately if you want to know the auction I used, I don’t want to advertise for private offerings.
Oof, that’s way outta my range. I was just thinking more along the lines of a few 5 volt 3m waterproof strips might do the trick if I cut them to 6 foot lengths or similar. 150 seems way over my assumption.
I happened to see the sellers with 50 @ 5V = $14 shipped. 5V is cheaper, but you pay a little more for it on the backend with more frequent power injection on long runs.
There are also traditional “C9” packaging which look exactly like the bulbs used pre-2000’s. But those are even more.
Best to start small then work your way up.
Ah okay, I misread. You said 500 LEDs. I ran some numbers and looked up some best practices as it were, for decorating. A lot of places say 100 lights per 1.5 foot of tree. 30 leds\m, 2.3 meters per strip, 6 hanging strips. Gets me pretty close. All that being said even bargain hunting the standard strips will run me a minimum of 60 bucks, which is just too much for Xmas tree lights, not even including the microcontroller.