I’ve seen quite a few controller panels on here, the work you all do is next level. It inspired me to try and design/build out a centralized controller panel with room to grow. I’ve been largely successful, it’s been a two year project and I’m just now getting the lights onto the house. This has been a really fun experience, I’d do it again in a heart beat. This post is primarily about my panel and connection points, I spent a lot of time making this really clean install and 100% serviceable with conduit, service loops, detachable connections at every injection point, entry point, and at the controller. Happy to answer questions, I will say I know why most people leverage their existing power infrastructure and satellite boxes now though. The images here don’t show the channels wired up but they are now and I’ll post a follow-up with the lights later next week when they are all up and the show is running. Happy to you Holidays Everyone!!!

Some things I learned along the way:
1. If you think you need a data channel amplifier, add 2, many long runs at my house, upwards of 200’ in some cases. If I had it over to do again I’d use UTP. 
2. Spend more time planning, see my first learning 😁. I wish I had sat down in markup or even a piece of paper before starting to buy and install. It would have saved me $100’s and countless hours
3. Direction of data signal is importantly (duh). When working with wires going in and out of crawl spaces, attics, and soffits it can get a little confusing. Hence the labels.
4. If you’re going for a clean install, which my wife required, use low voltage electrical boxes or even standard boxes and secure the boards and step down converters well, the less they move around during install the better.
5. Wire ferrules are your friend, makes plugging, unplugging much easier

The Panel
3 - Control/Brain boards, 3 - 50AMP 12-port power boards
2 dedicated 20AMP GFCI circuits, 2 - 24V 400W power supplies
8 - dedicated LED wired runs w/expansion up to 24 
20 - 24V -> 5V 50W DC-DC converters
18 - 5V data line amplifiers
800’ - 16AWG 3 wire tinned copper wiring
32 - 3 pin electrical connector female and male.
28 - 60 pixel, 300LED IP65 strip lights
43 - aluminum channel with cover
A metric ton of label maker labels

Note I didn’t share brands or anything because I wasn’t sure about rules but PM me if you want more details.




The Pain of Centralized Controller Panel