From the time we were first inspired until the time we had the squares, rectangle and one dormer window matrix working and sequenced, it was two weeks, but most of that time was waiting on parts to arrive. We initially installed it inside our apartment for development, testing and sequencing the first song. Once we had the second dormer window matrix built, we put the lights in our apartment windows for further sequence development and experimentation. We added three more panels to the marquee, three more squares to its panel and a jacket (wireless). We then moved the display to the house site and later added the candy canes and snowflake.

For the initial setup:

The candy canes and snowflake were a late addition, and for those, we made the pixel meshes ourselves. To do that, there are a few more needed items unless you want to cut everything by hand:

Our cell phone is a $40 special, so it does not have the best camera. When first trying to record using the default video camera app, everything was massively overexposed because you cannot change any useful settings. We installed HedgeCam2, and that allowed us to drop the ISO to 100 which helped a lot - still not great, but at least you can tell what's going on. We probably could have dropped the brightness of the show a little more and recorded it again, but it was late, cold and icy. Next year maybe we'll get a better camera. Baby steps.

We picked up NeoFilm Express when they were having a short 100% off sale (i.e., free). It's much more powerful a video editor than we really want, but the price was right.

The initial set up (before candy canes and snowflake) that we have for Christmas 2021 was approximately $1600, but you can spend far less and far, far more depending on how fancy you want to get. At an absolute minimum, you need a controller (even just the simple chase controller mentioned above), some pixels (bullet and/or flat), a power supply (appropriate voltage for the type of pixels you are using) and some wire, but to really have fun with making your own sequences, you will want a controller that can interface with the xLights software. There are a bunch of different ones available depending on how many pixels you want to control, what your future plans are, and how much you want to spend.

Google “Christmas pixels” or check out our Resources page.

Full disclosure: we are an electrical engineer and a software engineer (both retired), but that does not mean you need advanced skills/knowledge. You have to be able to read simple schematics and do basic wiring – even with a ready-to-run controller because you will probably have to inject power into your strands. If you don’t know how to splice wires together (solder and heat-shrink) or what the difference between a 12 volt and 5 volt power supply is, or what polarity means, then this is probably not the project for you – you can destroy your controller and/or your pixels if you hook up things together incorrectly. Other than the electronics, you will need basic crafting skills (and patience to pop all the bullet pixels into the mesh) as well as basic computer skills to create your sequences.

Yes eventually, but that's unlikely for 2021 (maybe something new for New Year's Eve).)

Probably. We'll add some more features and try to keep the parts list up-to-date, but I hate CSS, so making it prettier is the lowest priority item on the list.

You’ll have to come back next year to find out!

Feel to send it, and we'll try to answer it if we can or refer you to somewhere that might.