Summary: A wire that technically reaches is often still too short.

Lights and Wiring

Cable Length Between Pucks When Changing Directions

When your tracks change direction, the short length of cable between pucks will probably be too short to reach into the next track section if you were in the middle of a strand.

Back To Our Example (Yes, Again)

Getting my use out of this graphic

• Going from 🟣 purple track to 🔵 blue track is no problem. We’re still running in a straight line and the spacing between those pucks is the same as any others (thanks to making sure I put two factory-cut ends next to each other).
• Going from 🔵 blue track to 🟡 yellow track presents problem #1
• Going from 🟡 yellow track in to the soffit towards the next track (not visible in pic) is problem #2

Problem 1 - Minimal wire between pucks

The spacing between each puck on a string provides a little bit of slack, but not much. From the picture you may think that the space between 2 pucks on the same track are basically the same distance apart as the space between the puck at the end of the 🔵 blue track and the first puck on the 🟡 yellow track, but it isn’t.

In most cases there just isn’t enough slack to make that turn and still be able to clip the puck in to the cutout.

In this case I probably could have cut a bit more off the left end of the 🟡 yellow track and made it work, but you won’t always have that option. It also isn’t always worth even trying. Having minimal slack makes the install super frustrating.

Solving Problem #1

I found it best to just handle this before I even started installing the lights here. In this case I would have cut the lights after the last puck needed for the 🔵 blue track, then spliced that in to another string of lights (more on that process later) which will go in the 🟡 yellow track. That gives the added wire length needed to reach from one track to the next and have room to work.

Cut the ❌ middle puck out, splice the the two 🟩 green ones together, and you now have an extended length between two lights.

But don’t forget that you only have 3 more lights until the next problem…

Problem 2 - Transition through soffit

Another angle

This is a different angle of the same section of roof. We can now see the vertical track we transition to (🟠 orange track) and the 🟢 green track going up the peak at an angle.

The transition from 🔵 blue track to 🟠 orange track requires something different than problem #1. You can’t just crimp 2 sections of lights together because you can’t pass the pucks themselves through the soffit (unless you drill a massive hole I suppose).

For this transition there are two main options:

1. Add an xConnect pigtail on the end of the 🔵 blue track light string and pass that connector through the soffit, then begin with an xConnect on the 🟠 orange track light string.
2. Use some 3-wire cable and splice that to the end of the 🔵 blue track light string and feed the wire through. Then on the 🟠 orange track side you can either splice that one directly to the light string as well (will require cutting if you ever need to remove in the future), or you can put an xConnect pigtail on the end of the 3-wire and then start with a new string.

Solving Problem #2

I did a mix of both of those just depending on the space I was in.

At the beginning of the install I was doing #2 (hardwiring both sides) more often because I wasn’t sure how many pigtails I’d need for the whole house. I figured I was having to cut and splice wires no matter what so if I had to replace it, I would just cut and splice some more.

Towards the end of the install I was doing #1 (xConnect on both sides) more often. Aside from picking the best option based on the spot I was in, I switched it up for a couple reasons:

• I realized I had plenty of xConnect pigtails once I got halfway through the install (helped by the fact that I wasn’t using them much at first).
• I was cutting light strands for all these various transitions which meant I was ending up with lots of strands that weren’t complete, but had the factory-installed xConnect on one side or the other. I simply started using all those small leftover strands in order to not waste them, but also because it allowed me to use the factory connectors on them.