AusChristmasLighting 101 manual - Feedback for first/second edition

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Bevo

Let your Light Shine before men
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I like it a lot Eddy, Great job and thankyou for taking the time to put it together.

I am sure this will help heaps of people understand our hobby.

Thanks again. ;)
P.S And everyone else who helped.
 

zeph

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First - Great Work! Very well done and useful.


However, I have to agree with the 'Doc, it would be best to totally drop the comparison of DC + and - to AC power and neutral. They really are not the same concepts in so many ways. This is not just nit picking for professional engineers, I mean for a newbie it's just misleading, not illuminating.


You could say "Just as you must be careful to connect the + and - conductors correctly with DC, you should be careful to connect the AC neutral and line wires to the proper terminals in many devices". That conveys the concept that each has two wires, and that (always with DC, sometimes with AC) which wire is which matters, without any confusing and false equivalances.


Just by the way, in the US there are both "polarized" and "unpolarized" two conductor AC mains plugs. Devices which are well insulated often have unpolarized plugs where you can't tell and don't care which is power and which is neutral. If you care, the polarized plug has a larger blade on one side. A number of christmas lights appear to be unpolarized, as it doesn't matter. One could waste time trying to figure out which wire goes where with unpolarized devices, if one thinks that it always matters.


And of course, other devices require three wires, including ground.


You may notice that I'm not talking about pedantry or being technically right, I'm talking about the practical real world situations people will encounter.


Anyway, hope this helps with the second revision - after you've had a well deserved vacation!
 

fasteddy

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zeph said:
First - Great Work! Very well done and useful.


However, I have to agree with the 'Doc, it would be best to totally drop the comparison of DC + and - to AC power and neutral. They really are not the same concepts in so many ways. This is not just nit picking for professional engineers, I mean for a newbie it's just misleading, not illuminating.


You could say "Just as you must be careful to connect the + and - conductors correctly with DC, you should be careful to connect the AC neutral and line wires to the proper terminals in many devices". That conveys the concept that each has two wires, and that (always with DC, sometimes with AC) which wire is which matters, without any confusing and false equivalances.


Just by the way, in the US there are both "polarized" and "unpolarized" two conductor AC mains plugs. Devices which are well insulated often have unpolarized plugs where you can't tell and don't care which is power and which is neutral. If you care, the polarized plug has a larger blade on one side. A number of christmas lights appear to be unpolarized, as it doesn't matter. One could waste time trying to figure out which wire goes where with unpolarized devices, if one thinks that it always matters.


And of course, other devices require three wires, including ground.


You may notice that I'm not talking about pedantry or being technically right, I'm talking about the practical real world situations people will encounter.


Anyway, hope this helps with the second revision - after you've had a well deserved vacation!

I think taken out of context i would agree but when read in full as shown below, the comparison is so people who have this big fear of DC see that the connection concepts are similar. The definition section also spell out the differences in AC and DC. Remember im trying to make this easy for people to understand the connection and control concepts they have already learnt with AC voltage control and use some of that knowledge with connecting up DC control. It never says or suggests that they are interchangable. Most people who do not work with electricity are not interested in the technical details and comparisons between AC and DC, what they are looking for is how they connect it up safely and by giving a very basic comparison between AC and DC connections enables people to link that with what they have already learnt. the last line of the below statement sums it up.

Low Voltage DC is relatively safe to use and work with and is an ideal voltage for our hobby. The difference in the wiring of a DC controller to an AC controller is just the names of the terminals as in both cases you must ensure you have the correct wires connected to the correct terminals or else permanent damage may occur to the controller. So to sum it up in very basic terms
Mains Active Line (A) in the DC world is equivalent to Positive + Line
Mains Neutral Line (N) in the DC world is equivalent to Negative – Line
Remember that DC controllers will only work with a low voltage DC power supply and AC controllers will only work with an AC mains voltage supply. Never mix the two.

I hope that may explain the reasoning behind the comments, its not intended as teaching a person the engineering differences, it more to do with the basic connection. and how that compares to AC. Nothing more than that. :D
 

DougieB

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As I have already said in other posts, this site rocks and thanks to Eddy and his hard work on the manual has pushed me into RGB this year.
Thanks Eddy, keep up the fantastic work 20 out of 10 from me
Doug
 

oldmanfathertime1000

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In reference to your post « on: February 20, 2012, 04:23:09 PM » "I would remove the word safe from this sentence. The fact that DC is a good choice for LED's is true, but there is no reason that I am aware of that AC is safer than DC at the same voltage."

We all were taught in basic electrical school that DC voltage was more dangerous than AC voltage. DC will grab you & not release you, where as AC will tend to release you or kick you back. However, both DC & AC voltages should be treated as dangerous anywhere you use it.
 

Timon

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Thats true you need to be careful with both but if you keep your DC voltages below 50V you normally don't have to worry about getting electrocuted. This is why I'm planing to not have any AC voltages out in the general display area.
One note however, even though DC voltages are fairly safe from a shock point of view the high energy is something to watch out for. Example, a car battery won't shock you but get your ring accross the terminals and it's going to turn white hot in seconds and you'll likely say bye bye to your finger :'(
Caution all the way around is always a good plan.
 

fasteddy

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I have used the term relatively safe because compared to 110V and 240v this is a true statement. When you take into account that we use DC power supplies that have short and overload protections then this helps increase the safety aspect of using DC volts. I am only talking about extra low voltage which are voltages traditionally used in this hobby which rarely exceed 35 volts DC and is more common with 12vdc and 5vdc.
The other advantage of extra low voltage is if you do get water into the terminals then you shouldnt expect the sparking light show that you would get with 110v and 240v.

Yes a 12vdc car battery can be very dangerous if you are woking on it an you are very sweaty but we dont use car batteries for our lighting. So theoretically DC voltages can be dangerous depending on the application its used in and the conditions at the time (ie lots of moisture)

But when working with any electrical equipement caution should always be exercised and you should work with the power off and disconnected from the mains supply.
 

RickC

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Hi Eddy, I'm new to all this malarkey and at the moment just trying to get my head around everything.

I've downloaded the 101 guide and have read it cover to cover, several times. But one thing is bothering me;

On page 21, the illustration at the bottom shows 2 wires coming out of the SMPS, one red and one black, the red is labelled -DC Volts but is connected to the + on the controller and the black wire is labelled + DC Volts but is connected to the - on the controller.

I've a gut feeling this is a typo but because the illustration also says "+DC Volts common return is + but the wire is black in most cases..." I'd just like to make sure.

Thanks for a useful intro into all this.
Rick
 

kane

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RickC said:
On page 21, the illustration at the bottom shows 2 wires coming out of the SMPS, one red and one black, the red is labelled -DC Volts but is connected to the + on the controller and the black wire is labelled + DC Volts but is connected to the - on the controller.

I've a gut feeling this is a typo but because the illustration also says "+DC Volts common return is + but the wire is black in most cases..." I'd just like to make sure.
Yep, I'd agree with you there - the "-DC Volts" and "+DC Volts" labels are just on the wrong wire.
 

fasteddy

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Yes this is an error with you being the first to point it out. No idea how that got past like that.

Looks like it may be time to update the manual soon anyway. Thanks for pointing that out
 

exlcacer

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Unable to access the Manual. Receive an error stating I don't have permission to view or perform action.
 

fasteddy

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Unable to access the Manual. Receive an error stating I don't have permission to view or perform action.
There may be an issue with the forum setup as the forum software has undergone a major update a few days ago. It may be linked to the number of post to verify yourself, so maybe give it a go now to see if it allows you to download. Ill ask Ryan to look into it when he gets some time.
 

BernardOfCA

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A while back (!) I moved from the 220V world (Europe) to the US. I was convinced that the US was running on 110V but in reality they moved to 120V a long time ago so 110V is no longer a thing here!
 
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