Not trying to discourage you either, because I've thought of doing the same (only I was thinking of making shapes instead), but if you're only making 1k nodes, I don't think you could buy all the parts to make them for under $1 per node. Also, don't use the shipping cost from aliexpress to calculate shipping 10 strings. Send Ray and email asking for a quote on shipping. It'll be way cheaper. I remember asking Ray for a quote on 30 100-count smart strings, and I think it was around $130. So, as you can see it's definitely a lot cheaper.