Now that I have more time,
I have done this as a year round lighting solution permanently installed in my house. I used 12v ws2801 48 leds/m. every three leds are controlled individually, which is fine on the scale of a house.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-48-LEDs-16-Pixels-M-DC-12V-WS2801-RGB-LED-Strip-IP67-Waterproof-White-PCB/1927065244.html
I have ran some 12 awg wiring in my attic along the eve where the lights are, then tap every 10 ft with 22 awg wire about 3ft to the lights. full white at full brightness this way.
Also, the 22 awg wire fits into little holes in the pads on these strips which makes the soldering easier.
For the data and clock, I decided to go wireless with a 433mhz rx that is controlled by a tx I made. I have the rx sitting up in the eve 3ft away from the first led strip. I get a range of about 75ft in the 433mhz transmitter before the signal conks out. On my rx I also installed resistors on the data and clock lines as well as a capacitor on the power out to help protect the strips. I did initial testing with 25ft of Ethernet cable from the controller and the strips and it did seem to work, but I was never testing anything faster than 10fps. The advantage of the wireless controller is I can spread them throughout the house to create multiple zones… for instance, on my back porch I’ve got just white light, and then on my front eves I have twinkling lights, and on my front porch I’ve got red and green fading back and forth.
although the strips are waterproof already, I wanted something a little more finished so I went with some aluminum extrusion to incase the strips.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pcs-20M-lot-x2m-per-piece-PROFILI-per-strip-strisce-led-alluminio-profiles-for-strip-barra/32347404162.html
In the back I put them up as is, but in the front I had them powder coated white… I mounted them with 3M heavy duty two sided tape onto vinyl siding, It comes with clips, but they don’t work well on flexible things, might be better on wood. Screws take up too much room inside the track.
for power I used a 12v power supply from a server. They are cheap and put out lots of power. 100amp 12v in my case, on a dedicated 20amp 120v circuit.
it isn’t all done yet, but concept is proven…
here is a short clip showing my porch fully set up… I had plan to walk through everything in more detail once it’s finished, ideally before Christmas of this year, but time is too limited I think…
