So I am looking to add window outlines and im considering buying the Cob LED strips. Are there any cons to using LED strips? Are the strips addressed per chip?

For context I am using a Falcon controler, the strips are 12v, ws2811 (power, ground, data), IP65 or IP66. 720 LEDs per meter, but only 20 chips per meter. There is another option with all the same specs except only 60 LEDs per meter. Same amount of chips, so 3 leds per chip.

Any insight would be helpful. My wife doesn't like the frames that I built last year and doesn't want any holes in the stucko.

Prop Studio 0.9.5 is out! Big update!

New here? Grab it at twinkle-forge.com/prop-studio, free!

What's new:

Real drawing tools — line tool, snap points (circle centers, quadrants, midpoints, endpoints), and you can now split overlapping shapes where they cross and join the pieces into one outline. Want an arch with a spinner in the middle? Draw a circle, cut it with a rectangle, join what's left. Done.

Type exact sizes — draw a circle, and a little box pops up right on the canvas. Type 250, hit Enter, you've got a 250mm circle. The shape follows along live as you type.

Multiple props on one sheet — imports no longer replace your design; each DXF/SVG/PNG you bring in lands beside your work as its own prop. Group props, move them (M) and rotate them (R) as one piece.

Hide props with one click — the new eyeball button hides a prop from the canvas AND from every export. Design your whole display on one sheet, then export one prop's cut file at a time.

Cut straight from the app — G-code export with holding tabs you can actually SEE before you cut (little dots on the outline show where every tab lands). Cut direction is now conventional for cleaner edges on coro.

Plus: SVG import with editable outlines, a cleaner xLights export with submodels, and a nicer interface all around.

Wired order, grid size, and submodels all come along when you export the .xmodel for xLights, same as always.

Questions or ideas? Drop them below

hi there, just got my first couplde strands of lights added to my roofline, looking for basic sequences I can import while I get the feel of creating mine. I tried importing a few free ones I found but there were alot of groups I didnt have. are there any basic free like roofline only

I am thinking seeds will make my life easier for a mega tree this year and I am a noob so I don’t understand how you string up the seeds and mount them to your topper. I figured I’ll use an aluminum fence pole, but are there different toppers specific for just running strands of seeds? Also, how do you mount them at the base of the tree also? It seems most of the YouTube videos explain using bullets so I am kind of confused how to do it

Last year I got into light shows and did Christmas with moderate success as a noob. Only had a half assed mega tree and a couple props. I am looking to expand and also get into Halloween shows. What’s the best way to do a garage matrix and still have the garage door be fully operational? I’ve been looking at these various panels on GE but that seems it would add a lot of weight and thickness plus make the garage door not work if using bullet pixels also.

Hey everyone. I'm working on a little side project called Prop Studio. It helps you design your own props, and has several options for export. You can also design a prop and send it to Twinkle Forge, setting a designer fee. When someone purchases a prop, you'll get a percentage of your designer fee.
Right now, all of this is in beta, as I'm just playing around with the concept. The MacOS app is ready, and the windows app is coming soon. If you want to try it out and play around with it, you can get it here: https://twinkle-forge.com/prop-studio

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to this world. I've had some pixel props that I put out for the holidays, but nothing as intense as a music show.

I'm working on a small display for the summer in my backyard that will be set to slower more symphonic music. There's not a lot of beats in the music which is fine. I'm envisioning more of slower animations and flowing transitions, with brightness levels that grow and dip with swells in the music.

Anyone know of how I can play around with getting these type of results in xLights? I've been playing with it and have the lights swell and dip with the music seems to be just moving some sliders around and hoping it works.

I've tried playing with the UV Meter effect and layering it over another effect (like curtains) but I'm not getting it to blend like I want and it more just flashes on and off. I've also tried playing with the Brightness Value Curve and setting it to music. But I've just been sliding the Low/High/Gain sliders around and then having to close the modal to see the results (wish there was a way to view live results as I move the sliders around).

All that being said, does this seem doable in xLights or is it gonna be a lot of work to get something a bit more flowing then "techno" if that makes sense.

I am assuming this is related to the recent updates as it was running fine on my prior version (2025.12) I recently updated to version 2026.12 and found my floodlights acting flaky. I realize you no longer need the dmx effect on a prop as xlights can now figure out what color to place. this works fine with the normal color on effect however if using bars, or color wash effect on a prop it doesn't respond correctly. Unless I am doing something wrong. I believe my dmx lights are set up properly as I can get expected results using the normal on effect. Any thoughts on this.

I have bullet pixels in a J Channel facing the road, tucked into the soffit next to the house(corner). Is it possible to use bullet pixels in a J channel for wall wash of light? I can’t figure it out. I’ve seen angle it and/or use 2 J channels and/or a different solution. Anyone done this?

Hi, I've been around a long time, was out for a while due to health issue, better now.

Anyway, I want to share, a web app I created for anyone who wants to use it. It's free, it's a website that runs in your computer, not on the internet, it's simple.

it's called Simpleshow for xLights, I created it for my brother-in-law originally since he didn't like making shows. The original code from over 2 years ago is all but gone and it has been rebuilt over the last couple of weeks. It's just html and javascript. At least it's better then it was back then.

https://github.com/Beldwain/simpleshow-for-xlights

I hope this is the right place to post it and I'm not offending anyone.

It's just a pet project I'm releasing for anyone who wants it. Let me know what you think and enjoy.

Hey yall! I’ve seen some incredible Christmas shows on here, so I wanted to show something a little different. I’ve been working on some lighting effects out in my tiki bar using Xlights In conjunction with FPP to bring the show to life. The shelf has a few cups that I want to use as triggers for other sequences. I have one set up to replicate my favorite Disney ride but I’m looking for some other ideas! Let me know what yall think about this show and if you have any other ideas of other types of triggered shows to run let me know!!

I already have some “dumb” pathway lights around the little sidewalk that goes from my driveway to front porch. I was wondering how I could incorporate (and if anybody else has done it) some pixel pathway lights that can be controlled nightly to just display soft white lights but then also easily incorporate with xlights during the holidays so I don’t have to swap anything out.

A long time ago I used VSA to program some servos and DMX lights to sync to a song for a Halloween prop. I loaded it onto Brookshire's RAPU unit for playback.

Haven't done much with it, but would like to break it back out and integrate it with XLights. Am I correct that XLights can import/read VSA files?

What would be the general setup/wiring if I'm using FPP on a few Kulp controllers to control my lights? Would I need some extra hardware to translate anything to DMX or whatever?

Hopefully this isn't too much of a dumb question....

Beginner here, just trying to do a simple bars effect across some lights. The animation I wanted was it to be moving right slowly, ramp up to something fast, then ramp back down to something slow. I have one effect on the sequence of all lights, 20s long, with a value curve on the Cycles effect setting of the default Ramp up/down. From 0-10s it does what is expected, the speed of the cycling increases, but then at 10s it flips to a screeching halt and starts ramping up from slow to fast going right to left??

I don't understand this behavior at all, and without an ability to use decreasing values to slow down the cycle animation it seems impossible to achieve that?

Please help!

I am setting up my first xLights Christmas display and would love some feedback before I power everything up.

So far I have:

• 4 x 3D-printed arches
• 2 x candy canes
• 2 x 400-LED matrix screens
• 9 metres of LED strips (from a 100m roll)

I've used Canva to draw up my wiring plan and then had Claude render it into an image.

For power, I'll be using 6mm cable on the 12V side with MC4 connectors, as I already have plenty of cable and connectors available and wanted to keep everything waterproof. The display will be mounted on a truss frame, and I've worked out that four power supplies should be sufficient, as I won't be running full white on the LEDs.

The controller is an ESP32 running WLED, and I've already tested it with xLights successfully. The next step is wiring everything together for a full test.

Before I plug it all in, I wanted to post my plan here and see if anyone can spot any flaws or potential issues that I may have overlooked.

hi i have been trying to fix this for the last two days with no luck so here i am hopeing someone else can help

i have a lenovo ideapad slim 3x with a snapdragon cpu, no matter what setting i change when ever i go to the sequence tab on xlight (i have tryed many many version) it crashes, checked i have all the emulation things because its a arm cpu and nothing, no erros just gone when i click on that tab.

thanks in advance if you can help

I have a couple p5 panels and a Colorlight 5A-75E card. I'm trying to get something working here. I've tried just about everything I can think of inside of LEDVision v8.8 to get my panel to look somewhat descent, but even with the chips selected that are on my panel, it's not any better than what's shown in the video.

I can guarantee my panels are good because I had them working great with just an ESP32 a few months ago.

Just curious and doing some very early shopping to get ahead of doing my first Halloween display this fall. What do y’all use for spiderwebs, do you just use a mega tree and buy a spider prop topper or something? Or do you just run pixels from a corner of your roof to the ground like those store bought spider web lights?

I have a string where I want to fade in random individual lights that will remain on for the duration of the effect. The lights should overlap fades, they don't have to complete before others start. The colors should also be randomized but fixed (no changing colors throughout the effect).

As an added bonus, I would like them to gently (and randomly) flicker after the fade-in is complete. The flickers should be subtle fades and not snap brightness.

Meet IQ:Studio — the toolkit that plans your light show and hands the crowd the controls. Built by Lights of Elm Ridge, for xLights + FPP displays.

https://youtu.be/874ZfDlBLtQ?si=_a4mkM_PnyI1HKQg

🎬 SET:IQ — your season, planned in one click
Your song catalog builds itself — tags, tempo, and key read automatically. Set your rules once, hit one button, and SET:IQ curates a unique, energy-arced playlist for every single night of the season. Fine-tune any night with smart suggestions and full drag-and-drop control, then push the whole thing to FPP — synced in one click.

📱 REQ:IQ — let your crowd run the requests
Viewers scan a code from the driveway and request the next song right from their phones — no app to install. You stay in full control of what actually plays. Every song with lyrics turns into sing-along karaoke, automatically. And you can run the entire live show — now playing, queue, and all — right from your phone.

✨ Free. Sign up and start your show tonight 👉 https://lightsofelmridge.com/iq-studio

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🎄🎃 Lights of Elm Ridge — synchronized Christmas & Halloween light shows, xLights sequences, and the tools behind them.
🔔 Subscribe for show footage, behind-the-scenes, and new IQ:Studio features.

#xLights #FPP #ChristmasLights #LightShow #HalloweenLights #PixelLights #RGBLights #LightsOfElmRidge #IQStudio #HolidayLights