Can I hang Smart String nodes along gutter?

[Zeph]

I have about 48' of gutter along which I was thinking to hang a 100 node smart string (using plastic gutter hooks), if I can get Ray to produce it with 6" spacing.

The question is - how will that look?  I'm concerned that the nodes will certainly not be consistently facing the street and thus will be dimmer and possibly of unattractive varying brightness if oriented at random angles; probably the best I can hope for is fairly consistently facing downward; good thing they are IP68 as this puts the opening upward.  (The gutter is a light/dull reddish, not white, by the way).  Will that look bad?   Does anybody have a video of smart string nodes hanging from their wires on the house?

Do I need to find some mounting method which faces the  pixel nodes more towards the audience?

If so, any ideas?  I like the 1/2" PVC + clips approach some folks use when mounting to wood - but with 7" metal gutters that seems more problematic; I'm guessing it would not be wise to screw the clips into the gutters, right?

[dpitts]

You can buy cheap plastic gutter clips that clip on, no screwing. And then zip tie pvc pipe to them. The lights would zip tie to pipe. No screws at all.

[sjb]

If that does not work, how about getting some coroplast the same color as your gutters and cutting it into 3" strips. You can then cut holes and place the nodes through them and then clip the coroplast to the gutters. Coroplast is fairly light so I would think that the clips will hold it. Would also make it very easy to put up and take down.

Steve

[Steve Gase]

I've seen a video where a person used a table saw to cut a slot down the length of pvc pipe.  then the string was slipped into the pipe with the pixels coming out of the slot along that pipe.

this approach would allow you to clamp the pipe to your trim in just a couple locations.

for vertical spans, the pipe could hang off of a hook at the top.

[jnealand]

I have had for years white cup hooks scewed into the fascia board that is behind the gutter.  I have always hung my lights from them so when I put up my smart string nodes i just untwisted the wire so that all the nodes would be hanging straight down.  They are very bright and easily seen from the street.  Here are pictures of the nodes hanging under the gutters and one with the red light on and one with the white lights on .  Only the gutters and windows are SS nodes.  The other house stuff and the mega tree is standard LEDs the mini trees and arches are incans.  The mini tree on the far right is made from LEDs so I could compare them.  Next year I will remake all my minis with the LEDs that are no longer on the gutters and windows.  All the pictures were taken from across the street in a neighbors yard.

[NavyGator]

This is a post by one of the members with a link to their website. He
used some wood to space C9's. I am eventually going to use something similar but probably made out of pvc pipe or pvc trim to hang icicles and eventually some smart strings.

Rich

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Here is the picture I think you should see.

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[Zeph]

The C9's on wood are very nicely done.

Alas, I don't have a fascia board - the metal gutters (7" tall) connect to the rafters without a board at then rafter end.

I'm seeing that, yes, it would be possible to hang smart string nodes along the front of the gutters using those plastic clips designed for such purposes - in particular, letting the smart string nodes hang down can be OK (rather than needing to face them towards the street).  The pix by jnealand show very close to what I was asking (except it's hung along wooden fascia with cup hooks).

However, it has a white (ish) background; my gutters are a reddish color to match the trim.  I guess I'll trust that something will work and order smart string nodes and do some testing.

If I do feel a need to face the smart string nodes towards the street and audience, I suppose I could try mounting them to PVC pipe and then hanging the pipe from the plastic gutter clips.  More work to set up and take down, so I guess I'll need to test whether it's worth it.

[jnealand]

Think about putting some hooks on the bottom end of the rafters and using an eye bolt on a piece of PVC or 1x2 and hanging that under the gutters which would put the lights below the red gutters.  Just a thought.  I like having my lights under the gutters which also keeps them somewhat out of the direct weather, especially with the problems some folks have had with SS light failure.

[Kwajtony]

I hope I can leverage my PVC pipe that I drop over the edge of the gutter into holding my GE35's and my swags as well as my C9 LED Strings.  Actually, I'm going to double the size of the PVC pipe to give me more surface area to mount lights.  I have these You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to put between each piece of PVC for easy storage.

R,
Tony "C"

[PJNMCT]

Put the smart strings inside the PVC. It looks great.

-Paul

[rfallatt]

I am thinking of using J channel to do this. I looked at it in Lowe's and it looks like it will work.
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it even has holes to tiewrap the wires to. Not too much worried about wind.
 4.43 for 12.5 ft

[tbone321]

The only problem with that is not every Lowe's carries it.  The one's by be do not.

[Zeph]

Thanks for the tip, rfallatt - no Lowes within 100 miles carries these so I've never seen or considered them. 

There is free shipping to store so it's not bad in terms of price and availability, but it would be great to get a feel for them in person, as you have.

How frequently do you think they will need supporting?  (ie: how rigid and sturdy is it?)

[zwiller]

If no Lowes, you should be able to get some from any siding company or guy.  The stuff I have left over from our siding is not sturdy at all and rather flimsy but can't speak of the lowes stuff. 

Last year I did icicles zip tied on 1/2" pvc with hooks on 3' centers to gutters.  Loved it, but I tested all sorts of things before arriving at this.  Looks like your doing your homework. 

[chrisatpsu]

the J channel is in stock at my local lowes.  i'll have to go in and look at it.