For years I have wanted those “Permanent Christmas Lights” that can look great at the holidays, but can be so much more. I want them to be accent lighting at times where I can decide the color, brightness, location on the house to shine the light, etc. I wanted to be able to celebrate any holiday or reason with color and motion of the lights. Independence Day, MardiGras, my favorite teams championship game, You name it, we can set it up and make it look GREAT.
I spent the better part of a year researching and testing different lights and approaches for ensuring that these lights look profeessional when they are on or off. I didn’t want something that was obvious on the house and these blend right into the soffett so well. They are easy to install and even replace sections if needed. There are kits out there in the market, but they are about 4-8 times the price of creating them yourself. There is pride and cost savings in doing it.
Here are the items we used for our setup along with a set of videos that show how we learned and tested the systems. Then how we build great permenant moutning systems for the house, then how we installed them and wired them into the power supplies, and lastly how we created and configured some of the patterns we enjoy the most. I will continue to add new files, videos and information to this page as needed or as I update our software or some of the automations that I program into the system.
What we used, and where you can get them
Here are the basic items that we used to build our system.
Useful links to products
Below are the links to items we found useful for building this item
 12V Power Supply – Link |  5 Volt Power Supply (Not what we used) – Link |
 1.5″ Vinyl J Channel (Color Selectable) – Link | NOTE: If you need large qty’s you can go to ABC Supplies in a town near you and order there for slightly lower prices. |
 LED Pixels (WS2811). 500 pixels – Link |  Male Female Wires for making injection connections – Link |
 12 Gauge Twin Conductor Wire for Power injection (not good for below -4°F) – Link |  DigQuad Board (Ready to go – Recommended) – Purchase Dig-Quad Controller – DrZZZs-Link |
 ESP8266 – Link (Tinkerer Version) |  ESP32/8266 Bead Boards – Link |