OK... so took 3 days and watched all the videos I could find. I researched BOMs thru DLA vs other suppliers (DLA won hands down). I schemed out what I want to try and have before xmas 2014. its very simple, but its a start. I made the mistake of listing the necessary ingredients on an excel sheet. Holy High End Batman! But when I pulled my body back up off the floor from the sticker shock seizure, I broke it out into 12 months and I think I can handle. My budget is $80.23 a month. (that extra .23 that's the deal maker/breaker there, heh) But now I am left with sooooo many directional questions that I am hoping someone can help with:
I want to start out small, but with single line towards expandability. I don't have a lot of extra green floating around so I want to do it right the first time. I know I want to go with RGB 12v. I'm starting with a megatree, a star which I can fabricate and populate with the diodes, and 4 arches for the front. Here's the questions:
Etherdongle - no coops, and not in store stock. Where do I find one?
Hub - Is it better to get the LE or the passive 16 port hub? (I'm still not clear as to the pros/cons of each. RJ uses the 16 port in his vids, but everyone likes the LE) please advise.
Light strings - the site listed on the DLA equipment page is kinda out of my price range.. heh, heh... 
It will cost over $500 just for the lights if I get them there. Is there anywhere I might save some franklins? I would even be willing to entertain the thought of getting the diodes and stringing them myself, if its cost effective. It's not like I wont have enough time in the next 15 months.
It's awkward not knowing where to start. Sorry for the epic post, but i'm hoping to get this started in the right direction.
Is a mega tree ALL you are going for now?
Are you trying to pack in the BIGGEST tree you can for the minimal up front cost?
Are individually-controlled pixels important to you? ... or would RGB string-level control be ok?
Nearly all of the solutions are expandable, so the question becomes whether you want to pack a lot of lights into a small investment now -- or save room (more channels) for other things like arches, etc.
Let's say you want a string-level control. In that case you might go with dumb strings. If you later wanted to go pixel-level control you'd be painted into a corner -- but even in that case you could move your dumb strings to another part of your display and invest in smart strings next year.
Dumb string option:
You can buy 5 meters of RGB flex ribbons for $16.50. You can cut these into smaller pieces, and join pieces. I have gotten a deal on 20 5M strings and made 33 10' tubes from the pieces.
You should consider how you hang the strings or ribbons -- the extra costs for paracord, packing straps, polymesh, or PVC pipe adds to the cost... My dumb string megatree is using 10' 1/2" PEX tubing, each piece of PEX is translucent enough to pass through a nice level of light, and each piece costs $3.
So far, this costs 10x 5M strings for $165, and 16x 10' PEX for $48, or $213. You need controllers, then... for dumb string for this 16-tube tree you'd need 3x16 or 48 channels. A MR-16 controller can be used and you'd require 3 of them... maybe $60 or less each... another $180. You'd only need a DMX dongle to drive these controllers... maybe $60 for that.
Don't forget power supplies, cat5 cable to connect the dongle to the first controller, and then small pieces to daisy-chain the other 2 controllers with the first.
And, don't forget the "trunk" of the tree. This could be an existing pole in the yard -- or maybe a 10' piece for 4" PVC. And some ropes or cables to keep the tree from falling over.
This example is based on a 10' tree because the pieces of PVC (PEX) are easily available and transportable in a Prius.
Now, Let's say you want a pixel-based (smart string) tree... I'd recommend RJ's new Zeus controller... you can get high channel counts for a great price. There is a Zeus coop finishing up soon... this can do a max of 16 strings, or 4096 channels -- which is 1365 pixels. If you buy 100-pixel strings, then you'd be able to connect up to 13 strings. With software the strings can folded and controlled as if they were separate strings.... so you could have 52 virtual strings of 25 pixels, or 26 strings of 50 pixels.
If you go with the best available water-proofed strings, the technicolor from Ray Wu, each 100-pixel string costs (with shipping) about $65, and stretches about 28'.
To make strings go farther, consider a 180-degree or 270-degree tree. You may find the extra cost of lighting the backside to not be worth the trouble.
With a single Zeus can go with a Etherdongle, but you can also use a USB dongle programmed with the pixelnet firmware.
So, the real challenge is nailing down what you want to do... if you want to have a tall tree then you need to have something fairly strong to hold up the lights, and something like banding material or paracord to keep the strings tout to have a nice sharp look for the effects.
