I cut mine off so that I would have a couple of spares in case a single node went out somewhere. I put 3 pin waterproof connectors on both ends and run 2 snowflakes connected together per output using a single port off on an F16v1. I only had 4 flakes last year so that was 2 ports, now I'm going to 8 so will need 4 ports. Each hangs beneath an arch. Had 6 arches and put the 4 snowflakes on the middle 4, now going to 8 arches. My arches use landscape edging and also use 48 nodes each which was a nice number if I wanted to use a 6 or 8 node grouping, but I did not use the grouping. Xlight is so great for both the arches and the snowflakes. I also keep one spare 48 node string ready to go for backup. May put all the arches and the flakes on an F8 this year and repurpose the F16v1.