Just wondering what the best way is to uniformly control 24 sets of 600 LED 3 wire multifunction lights (going on the roof). The lights have multiple sequences but and are near impossible to sync. I am looking for a simple central power system that I can uniformly have the lights flash, twinkle and so on. It is probably easier with two wire sets than three wire sets but any ideas would be appreciated.
If these are lights that have a power pack that step down the voltage then you can easily bypass the multifunction controller and instead have these controlled by a DC 48 channel controller. If they dont have a step down transformer then these strings would be 240v and would require a AC voltage controller. More info is required about the strings to know what option to take.
The lights are from Kmart. They were reasonably cheap I thought at $39 for a set of 600 LED lights. The transformer has a 3 pin plug (from lights) going into it and has the following specs- Input: AC 100 - 240 50/60Hz Output: AC 31V 3.6 VA (120mA). All of the lights are multifunction without memory which is a pain as you have to manually set each set to sync them every time you turn them on. I have around 40 sets with these transformers. In previous years, I had purchased lights from Kmart and Big W as well as purchasing around 45 x 300 led light sets out of China through Ebay. Most of the Chinese imports didn't last more than a couple of weeks out in the elements. I also made the mistake of buying 26 sets of cheap traditional bud lights (320 per set) from one of the discount stores a couple of years ago. We had over 8000 lights on the roof of which over two thirds of the lights didn't work after four or five weeks. I realise that the majority of lights, regardless of where you buy them, come out of China but the hard bit has been narrowing down the reasonable quality ones from those that will fail within a few weeks use. I plan to use the remaining Chinese import light in protected areas such as the garage display and under the portico and will use the Kmart lights and the other more reliable lights in the outdoor areas.
You *should* be able to cut the controllers off those LED sets and run them from DC. What voltage it will need to be I'm not sure, as i don't think we've done any discussion on those sets before. It *may* be in the high 30's but not sure.
Here is a link to the DC modification on the Big W strings, yours may be different but may give you an idea on what is required to run these without the controller and on DC http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,173.0.html http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,362.0.html http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,177.0.html
Here is another video on connecting up a simple LOR system, it may be a bit outdated but again should provide an idea on whats required http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,149.0.html
