Hardware needed

So before really knowing anything about the grills, my idea was to pick up a basic RGB controller on Amazon, lots of extension cables, and RGB 4 pin splitter cables. After actually putting a little more time into the project I finally sat down and did a little math. Specifically, along with any controller, I would need to make sure I had enough power. The specifications for the FG121 has a rated current of  .48 amps and the FG141 is rated at .56 amps. With the plan being 10 grills that would put the total amperage at 5.2 not to mention any taken by the controller. Now honestly those ratings seemed a little high to me, but I wanted to be safe.

So first I had to look for a controller and just about anything would do the job. Initially, I thought about just hooking up a PC under the tree. It would also look like a nice gift, right? But I would hate to ruin a nice motherboard by overloading the RGB header on it and who would want a motherboard without RGB right ?. I considered something like the controllers SilverStone has, they even had one that had a remote but I figured one of the cheap controllers on Amazon would do what I needed. For example ,T HIS one is one that I considered.

When looking at those I came across one similar but it had Amazon Echo and Google Home compatibility along with an app and even though it was more I thought it would be fun to integrate it in with the rest of the Google home controlled lighting I have. Here is the controller. Its 144 watts at 12 volts max also would support up to 12 amps. A lot more than I needed.

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I would, however, need a power supply and this and all of the other controllers basically run off of AC to DC 12 volt transformers. I have a few 2 amp transformers in the office for projects but that wouldn’t be enough. Between you and I, my initial math was just with 10 of the FG121’s so I thought I only needed 4.8 amps of power so I ordered a 5 amp power supply, if you do 10 or more of these you should really look for a 6amp or more model. They even have versions with multiple connections where you can run more than one controller at once. Anyhow THIS is what I picked up.

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So I assumed that with the grills being able to be daisy chained together they would have a male and female connection on their cord but when I finally started to get everything put together I found out they don’t have that and they don’t come with those 4 pin male to male adapters that every RGB product has multiple of. I could have gone and pillaged through everything I own to find them but Amazon Prime is a lot easier. I ordered a set of 40 because it was the cheapest I could get in 2 days. THIS is what I ordered, any of them will work though.

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image 21The last thing needed to turn the SilverStone grills into one of a kind (well 10 of a kind) ornaments was ornament hooks. You see, one of the best parts of the grill design are the four potential hook mounts all around them. THIS is what I went with. String would really do the job or you could get a smaller set locally for a lower price. I ended up going with this set because I wasn’t sure which hook size I might prefer and I have other ornament projects in the pipeline so the extras would get used.

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