Turn your garden into a nighttime wonderland with a twinkling lighted crystal-lined pathway.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to build your own modular, weather-resistant pathway lights that are anything but ordinary. These lights are fully controllable using the free, open-source WLED software, so you can create dazzling light shows right in your backyard with no coding required. Sync multiple strips together using your local WiFi network. Control and program the lights with your smart phone or any web-enabled browser, enabling them to come on at sunset and turn off again at whatever time you choose. 

I rent my art out for events, so I wanted to build something that was sturdy, modular, and easy to transport. I built 16 independent 4-foot sections of track with connectors at each end so I can plug them in to each other in a variety of different configurations.  This guide will show how to do that, but of course it's fine to simplify and just use one long track for a permanent backyard install.

Skills & Materials

This is an intermediate level project. You'll need to be familiar with soldering connectors to LED strips -- check out our How to Solder NeoPixels guide for a primer -- and you'll need to get a little messy with silicone sealant. The programming and coding is the easy part. You'll need to install the software and do a little configuration, but WLED gets you to the fun part quickly: design and create your own light animations and playlists with the easy-to-use app.

Parts

Material Quantities

How much or how many of each piece will depend on the size and layout of your installation. Grab your tape measure and check the layout page of this guide before you order so you get enough of everything.

If you're installing in multiple areas and would like to sync over longer distances, try the Feather ESP32 w.FL antenna. This will extend your range considerably! The antenna is not included with the Feather so be sure to grab one of those too.

In choosing the density of your pixels, you have some options. Adafruit sells pixel reels at 30, 60, and 144 lights per meter. I found that the 60 LEDs per meter lights gave me really smooth animations and a decent light-run length. WLED runs into memory limitations after around 800 pixels in a run, so consider the total number of pixels you'll have when planning out your installation.

If you need more than 800 pixels, get a second microcontroller and sync the sections together. WLED makes this easy.

Here are the connectors and power adapters I used. I used a LOT of them -- my design is modular 4-foot tracks, and each track section had connectors. 

Additional Materials

• Garden Path Edging - 1.5" tall
• Plastic Crystals - size 16mm x 22mm: a 1 lb bag will cover about 4 feet of 1.5" edging. I made 16 4-foot tracks so I needed to buy in bulk. 
• Clear Silicone Caulk - 1 tube will cover around 7-8 feet of edging.
• 1/2" Clear Heat Shrink - for weatherproofing the strips
• Power Injection Wire - in case you have longer runs of 300+ lights