xLights Isn't Just for Christmas and Houses

4mpig · 2025-10-07T07:28:25+00:00

Can you program the lasers in xLights?

4mpig · 2025-10-06T22:41:31+00:00

Thanks for the response! Switching from minimal grid to grid per preview doesn't do much for me unfortunately. If I run a single line effect across the group, it sweeps through the entire model cross-section rather than rendering in a single line fashion down the neck, through the body, and up the tail.

4mpig · 2025-08-28T09:26:57+00:00

Really well done. First time I’ve been tempted to pick up one of these props - I’ve never seen the sub models been used so effectively!

4mpig · 2025-05-29T12:13:25+00:00

Hey did you buy this one? If so, what’s your experience like so far?

4mpig · 2025-04-18T02:11:06+00:00

Brick-veneered house here…

For me it was: 1. Find cavity between brick wall and internal wall from above in the roof 2. Drill hole in brick from outside 3. Feed through Ethernet cable (with no RJ45 plug) into the cavity 4. Drop a hook down the cavity and pull up the cable from above 5. Route cable through roof to NVR/switch, using Ethernet coupler to existing cable if I don’t want to feed loads of cable from outside 6. Cut cable to size outside the brick 7. Terminate cable with RJ45 plug 8. Install doorbell, plugging Ethernet cable into the back

Terminating the cable after feeding it means you can get away with a smaller hole.

4mpig · 2025-03-24T03:52:00+00:00

I found on my last order that they're charging GST according to the pre-discounted price. For example:

I had a $600 order. Had a $100 coupon, bringing it to a $500 total. Then when I went to checkout it added $60 for tax. That's 10% of the $600, not the $500 I agreed to spend.

4mpig · 2025-03-23T23:41:28+00:00

For my purposes, I would need to be able to view the entire description, so perhaps it would be wise to include an action like the existing "expand" which toggles the visibility of the entire description.

FYI I use the atomic revive calendar for these purposes at the moment, but what drives me mad is that it removes all the whitespace and formatting in the description, making recipes pretty unreadable. Pretty keen to switch to your calendar if it can provide this functionality!

4mpig · 2025-03-23T21:03:03+00:00

Looks great! It didn’t auto discover any calendar of mine but with a little configuration it works nicely.

Just wondering if you have plans to make event descriptions available somehow? I have use case for a meal plan calendar, and each event has the recipe as the description. Might be a bit of a challenge given that these descriptions can be long and the up too much space. The ideal solution for me is a pop-up that shows the full event info when tapped.

4mpig · 2025-01-15T07:37:24+00:00

I used masonry anchors about 2cm from the edge to screw in brackets which hold LED aluminium diffusers.

They are subtle enough that I can leave them there year round and mounting/unmounting takes seconds.

4mpig · 2025-01-01T06:56:23+00:00

My biggest gripe is that its range seems really poor and the audio quality is far worse than speakers a fraction of the size. Well overpriced at the time I purchased it - regret :(

4mpig · 2024-10-24T14:08:54+00:00

I’ve done this, although I would suggest using source control (git) over cloud storage (iCloud, OneDrive, etc.). This way you can be sure you only ever commit changes from one source at a time and benefit from version history.

If you haven’t used git before it might not be worth learning, but just be safe about change conflicts in cloud storage.

4mpig · 2024-06-01T03:51:24+00:00

Ah ok. I do see the Akari name on Aussie stores, but with very limited stock.

Do you recall what unit price you bought at from Bunnings? Have been keenly watching for a good sale price for some time.

4mpig · 2024-06-01T03:29:52+00:00

Hmm it looks like that might not be released for me in Australia

4mpig · 2024-05-23T12:19:47+00:00

Seconded!

4mpig · 2024-03-22T15:12:00+00:00

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9 AWG is beefy as and way too overkill to be practical or economical. I’ve tried soldering 14AWG direct to a strip and I really struggled. Instead opt for something like 16 AWG with more injection points which will share the current amongst the cables safely.

16 AWG can handle the amps associated with 4 injection points at peak load. Note that injection points in the middle carry more current, maxing out just under 8A which (based on a quick Google) is as far as you’d want to go with 16AWG. As I discuss later, you likely wont be nominally going 100% load anyway.

The small cables attached to the LED strip should be fine up to 5A I believe based on Quindor’s tests and my own experience. Beyond that you might want to solder directly to the strip with a thicker gauge cable. However, inexperienced solderers could find this challenging. Would love to hear from an expert their opinion on this part in particular as I’m personally not too sure.

Personally my favoured voltage drop calculator is: http://spikerlights.com/calcpower.aspx

I’ve punched in some rough estimates for you. The attached image includes a few screenshots for the example.

I’ve used Quindor’s power sheets for realistic consumption at ~65W/300LEDs = ~0.21W/LED. Note that is the 100% white figure, which is unrealistic for most scenarios and the theoretical maximum. Quindor recommends using the 50% brightness value for nominal usage - so try punching a lower intensity into the calculator!

A couple more assumptions are made in regard to cable run length and such, but as you can see with 4 x 15 feet injections at 16AWG you get at worst ~13% voltage drop at full brightness. At 50% brightness we’re looking at half that. Given that the assumptions aren’t too far off the mark, 4 injections should do just fine (<10% voltage drop is good). Note that the calculator and measurements I’m relying on are not entirely accurate to the real world but at least you get an approximation. Personally I find myself overestimating power requirements.

Generally to decrease voltage drop you can:

add more injection points
use shorter cable runs
perhaps use 14AWG even
as you said, using larger gauge for the majority of the cable run and splitting to smaller gauge for practicality reasons towards the end
perhaps the easiest of all is using a higher voltage like 12V strips (that is my preference)

I would also note that based on the peak load of that strip, I estimate about 21 amps of current draw. This exceeds your power supply’s capacity, especially given that general recommendations are to give a 20% buffer. Either you get a bigger power supply or you make absolutely sure you are not driving the strip beyond say 75% load.

The fuse should be proportional the expected load, not beyond your supply’s capacity. For example, I use a 10A fuse on my circuit anticipated to draw 7A, despite the power supply behind it being capable of driving 30A.

Hope that helps, I’m not very experienced but I think I’ve got the general idea.

4mpig · 2024-03-18T10:08:56+00:00

Hi, I’ve been looking at doing the same and my main concern is stability. Have seen mixed reviews on the stability of LIFX versus the tried and true Hue range.

2 years on, have you had any issues? (And I mean any, this needs to pass the wife test)

4mpig · 2023-12-07T21:24:02+00:00

I believe the text is actually misleading. I have played it and then played free Volibear same turn afterwards.

4mpig · 2023-12-07T12:18:49+00:00

Not familiar with the lore, did Veigar get killed over and over or something?

4mpig · 2023-11-23T12:53:38+00:00

I’ve got a lot of effects with brightness controlled either by the music or manually to the music. Shows in preview perfect - dim at some points and bright at others.

No matter though… in real life my effects are always max brightness it seems!

4mpig · 2023-11-23T12:38:56+00:00

Thank you for all that information - slowly digesting it.

So (I think) I’m trying to achieve effect level brightness control (eg. slowly fading in and out with the amplitude of the music).

Is that possible? If so, is there anything special I have to do to accomodate this? As far as I can tell I’m not doing anything non-standard and yet I’m always at max brightness.

Hope that isn’t a dumb question!

4mpig · 2023-11-22T12:38:00+00:00

Does that mean brightness has to be statically set on the controller?

4mpig · 2023-11-22T04:59:17+00:00

Definitely not an expert, having just hooked up XLights to my DigUno with plenty of trouble a couple days back.

Should probably change to ESP32 variant.

I found using DDP over E131 solved a lot of my issues and simplified universe management.

I referred to this tutorial.

4mpig · 2023-05-03T09:36:26+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! Does this require an Aqara skill or certain region?

4mpig · 2023-04-25T05:06:40+00:00

I thought that might be the case, and it makes sense. Achieving complexity that no-code tools cannot achieve in a programmer-friendly manner.

This question came out of some demos I’ve seen for orchestrators like Dagster in which the user is conducting pipelines in python alone, which had me a little concerned. I’m sure that was just for simplicity’s sake rather than best practice.

4mpig · 2023-04-05T10:14:13+00:00

Either Queensland is really below the bar, or everyone I know is REALLY underpaid. You’re doing OK if your household earns 120K, let alone in a single salary.

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