Last winter I had 3 x 5m strips of waterproof WS2812s zip tied to

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Last winter I had 3 x 5m strips of waterproof WS2812s zip tied to PVC pipe attached to the house. The system worked flawlessly all winter and I decided to leave it up over the summer as it was rather inconspicuous looking.

Fast forward to October and I’m ready to fire up a halloween pattern, but I’m now faced with strings of lights that are “glitching” instead of showing the desired pattern. I get around to taking the lights down and find that I have about 40 bad pixels. This is confirmed by watching the lights, seeing where the flow of pattern stops, removing the bad pixel, rinse and repeat.

The majority of the lights face west and get a healthy dose of late afternoon sun and my suspicion is that pixels were either UV or IR damaged by the sun.

Anyone else have a similar experience? Suggestions on how to avoid repeating these failures for next year? I would really like to leave the lights up on the house year round if possible.

Thanks!

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I hope to not have the same problem next year. I too left some DUMB pixel strings up over a year but all that happened to them was the clear silicone turned a bit yellow (they were under the eave not directly exposed). This year I upgraded to 2801’s, but put the strips in PEX tubing. I’m hoping that will keep any UV from hitting the actual strips and keep temps down if that is an issue, I’m in Oklahoma, we get some decent temps around here!

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I see that clear, UV resistant PVC can be purchased. What I’m curious about is the UV protection of things inside the PVC pipe. If I place my LED strips inside, would the PVC pipe filter the UV from getting to the LED strip?