Design Goal
After years of mounting a heavy LOR controller to my wood siding with wood screws I knew there had to be a better way. No way I’m doing that with my new pixel controllers. So the goal was to make a fast and easy way to mount / un-mount the controllers from the 1st story roof of the house. I also needed the controllers spaced close enough to the pixel strips to keep all extension cables under 25 feet.
Controller Clip Mount
It was Hannibal Smith of the A-Team who said it best, “I love it when a plan comes together!” This is exactly what I thought after having come up with this idea in my head months before it was time to put up the lights. I attached two of the 1/2″ Clear Lexan Pipe mounting clips to the wood siding permanently. Then I used a short section of PVC pipe attached to the controller to create a quick & easy pixel controller mounting system.
If you space the lexan clips apart far enough the pipe doesn’t touch the siding when installed. The HolidayCoro controller boxes have punch outs for a pipe clamp to pass through. The controller cannot slip down because I ensure the pipe clamps ares sitting on top of the lexan clips when I snap the controller onto them. The long range receivers are pretty light weight so it only took two clips to hold them nicely all season.
The main controller is heavier so I installed a third clip to hold it to the side of the garage on the ground level. I was pleasently surprised by how well the controller clip mount worked even through a blizzard that hit us with 70MPH+ wind gusts for 12 hours straight including 8 inches of snow and -35F windchill!
Waterproof CAT5 Dongle
The long range receivers did not have an external network jack. So you have to open the box and fish an ethernet cable through a tiny hole with a foam water barrier. I drilled a 20mm hole in the receiver box and installed a water proof CAT5 connector. You can see in the picture there are a series of washers and nuts that when tightened up form a waterproof connection; however, it can be easily disconnected by hand without the need for tools or opening the receiver box. After diconnecting the CAT5 cable from the receiver, I plan to tighten up the washer and nut a bit so they don’t slip around and then leave those parts on the cable when I store it for off season.
This is what the receivers look like fully mounted to the inside of both dormers.
Cable Bundle
I made a “T” shaped wire loom out of three outdoor extension cords (2 x 15′ + 1 x 20′), a 3-outlet adapter, and two custom length CAT5 cables. I wrapped the bundle in black flex loom making it barely noticable on the roof. The cable bundle runs the shortest distance possible straight down 2nd story roof in front of the porch. This is perfect since it’s right above the main light controller where the CAT5 cables connect. I have a second 3-outlet adapter to split power between the main controller and receivers up above. The cable bundle is designed to quickly roll-up for storage in the off season and rapidly deploy next season!
See the other pages in the Build menu to learn more details about each display element or click here to read about the LED Lights.