pathway.light.christmas

Mix and Match Socket/Globes for WS2811 Pixels! See the print profiles for different options.

This started as a Christmas project, but it's growing. The Jumbo Christmas Pathway Lights on Amazon are very expensive, look cheap, only light up one color, and aren't really jumbo at all. I searched online for existing bulb models to print, but nothing seemed to fit what I was looking to do. So I made these Pathway lights that stand about 10" tall and fit LED WS2811 pixels in the socket. Now we can use WLED to light them up, make them any color we want, and even incorporate them into light shows. If you just wanted to shine a flashlight into the globes for fun you can do that too….

You'll need to print a globe/bulb, socket, and a stake if you want to put it in the yard. I recommend PETG for this project. You can print about 6 C7 globes from a 1kg spool. You can print about 10 sockets/stakes from a 1kg spool.

Each socket has holes in the bottom to feed the pixels through. It's a bit tedious, but it works if you don't want to splice any wires. There's two versions of the socket, one with a spiral pattern that lines up the hot spots on the final product and another that has an open grid so you can arrange them any way you like. I decided to splice in some extensions between the bulbs to make a strand that had 100 pixels, 10 per bulb, and was about 25' long. It's your project, make it your own.

I have plans to make globes that look like trees, snowmen, a basketball, and a few other designs. More to come as this evolves. Please suggest any changes you think would be cool.

Choose the print profile that contains the item you want to print.

Sockets - See print profiles for all options
Basic (8 Pixels)
Spiral (10 Pixels)
Grid (10 Pixels)

Globes - See print profiles for all options
Basic - Looks like a small hockey puck
Basic Rounded
C7 Smooth
C7 Strawberry

Tree

No affiliation with any of these companies/groups. I'm just a fan of opensource like you and this is what I used.

Pixels WS2811

Hardware Controller - I'm a huge fan of the DigQuad (It comes preloaded with WLED software) I've sourced the parts separately and tried to build my own….The DigQuad is cheaper and easier to use…plus the added no soldering/troubleshooting bonus.
 

If you use a different hardware controller, I still recommend opensource WLED.

Cheers!