Hello

Greetings from Glass House Mountains, Queensland.
I am a total Newbie with NO knowledge who has started off with a static Christmas light display using 82 different types of lights. In January I swooped on Bunnings and collected close to another 100 different types of lights - rope, string, white, coloured etc - all marked down to the $ 5 mark. Only to discover on this web site that they are problematic when used with controllers. You know what I mean. However, I also discovered that there are solutions being developed for these lights (Phew) and I will be up for these controllers - quite a few of them - start manufacturing boys. LOL
Being a total uninformed Newb, I stumbled on LOR and purchased 3 x CMD24D cards to control 8 x RGB flood lights and 16 x RGB pixel strips.
I plan a mega 5 mtr Christmas Tree for this year using up the "Bunnings Multi coloured and Bright white string lights"
I can see I am going to get my self into trouble and I have trouble understanding what most of you are talking about, but I'll get there.
I have downloaded the 101 pdf file and starting to read it. I have marked on my calendar the Brisbane Mini Christmas expo.
I would also like to use a data projector and then eventually a pixel matrix for video , but first I need to crawl, stand up, walk, then run.

welcome aboard need to download the 101 nd came into the chat room

Welcome to the madhouse Videoman


if you have the 101 Manual you're off to a good start. read it and read it again.


Getting to the mini would be a good idea as well, good opportunity to talk to a few of the inmates. Next is jump into chat, lots of good people with lots of information they are very generous with.


Cheers
Fing

Hi videoman3857

Hanson Electronics sells the controller you need for the 2 wire light sets.
http://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/product/dmx2-18/
You'll still need to tackle the problem that your light sets all want slightly different voltages and you can modify them to fix this. Ropelights are tricky.

You'll also need to buy or make the crossover adaptor that Hanson Electronics sells to use the LOR controllers in DMX mode along with your 2 wire controller.
http://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/product/lor-esta_adaptor/

You can not use pixel strips with either of these controllers. Please post a link to the strips you bought.

Welcome to ACL.


Good to see a man who loves his lights and dives straight into it. Like i13 said, the controllers won't handle pixel strip. Hopefully what you actually have is what's called dumb strip. That is the strip can be any colour but the whole strip is that colour (as opposed to individual leds being different colours in a pixel strip). I know all this is hard to fathom at the start. It was for me anyway. If it is dumb strip then the lor controller will control it. Are any of your old static lights 3 wire lights (3 wires coming out of the multi function box). If so they can go on the lor controller too.


Anyway all that will be sorted in time. Welcome again and you are in for a heap of fun (interspersed by small periods of frustration, and we'll help you get over those) setting it all up.

Welcome to ACL... 8)

Thanks for the welcome everyone.
Thanks for the links for the controllers that will help fix my problem and letting me know I need an interpreter to go between them and the LOR controller.
Yes, I have dumb RGB strips to be used on the LOR CMB24D cards. I got that right - Yay me.


Also looks like Ray Wu is going to be getting quite a few orders too.
I gather we have to keep our purchases below a certain dollar value to avoid import duties ?

Yes videoman3857. The limit is AU$1000 when GST comes in. I think that includes the postage price too. Note that you can get a better shipping price by asking Ray directly. Aliexpress overestimates and overcharges you.

The crossover adaptor doesn't alter the signal, it just rearranges the wires that carry it. DMX only uses 3 wires but there are 8 wires in a CAT5 cable. The LOR controllers read the signal from different wires to most other controllers. This is why it is a fairly simple project to make - I'd just buy one (or a couple more as they work in both directions) if ordering the controller anyway.

Welcome to ACL Videoman, You are in the right place for help and on the right track.
Good luck

Welcome to ACL Videoman.

Welcome to ACL, lot of great help and assistance here to get you started for 2016