Lumos Light Show began in 2015 with a single strand of LED lights around a door frame. We have now grown to nearly 13,000 individual pixels, spread across multiple props. These props include a 20' mega tree and star, a 4'x8' matrix with 2,048 lights, and 4 awesome arches totaling over 3,000 lights. All of our lights are run with Kulp controllers on BeagleBones and the music is transmitted via radio on 89.7 FM.
What do all those numbers mean? Each light that you see is called a pixel and each pixel has 3 LEDs, one red, one green, and one blue. These LEDs are referred to as channels. That means there are 3 channels for each pixel. Each pixel can be any combination of red, green, and blue, resulting in 16 million possible colors to choose from. A single universe of data can control up to 510 channels*, or 170 pixels.
* Technically a universe is 512 channels, but because a single pixel is 3 channels (red, green, and blue) we use 510 since it's divisible by 3.
If you're interested in learning more about the components and technologies used in the holiday lighting hobby, AusChristmasLighting is the place to start. AusChristmasLighting 101 Lighting Manual.
The Canispater Christmas channel on YouTube is a great place to watch and learn about the world of RGB lighting.
Another great learning resource is the xLights videos page, which features videos from various sources such as Canispater Christmas and xEssentials presentations.
If you want to allow your viewers to control your show, but don't want to hassle with difficult setups like VPN or Port Forwarding, Remote Falcon is what you need! Best of all, it's free to use!
