[SIZE=small]I'm setting up a hypothetical situation in case disaster strikes your light show. [/SIZE] [SIZE=small]What would you do if one or more of following occurred here?[/SIZE]
A very good point raised here, worth a look and you should really be asking yourself these questions regarding what you would do regarding these failures. Its good to have spares but this can also be expensive, one of the ways to minimise expenditure on spares is for members to list what spare parts they may have on offer, so if failure was to strike then the parts needed may only be an express overnight delivery away. So as the season approaches I think it may be a great idea to create a list of spare parts available and who and where they can be obtained from.
If everything fails, no blinkys......get drunk and turn the lounge lights off and on at night for a few weeks
I keep this in mind as I plan my layout. As I can't afford spare controllers, I keep in mind if this controller fails do I let the show run without this element or rob a controller and leave a different element dark. I also plan so failures effect the show less. Like for a arch rather than wrap string for a channel, fold it in half before you wrap. So if half a string goes bad it looks dim rather than dark. On mega tree one controller for each color rather than 1/4 of the strings. If I lose a color the other 3 make it so most people won't notice but if I lose 1/4 of the tree everyone will notice. And planning like this makes it easy if something goes bad because you already know what your going to do. That's the outside, inside I keep a copy of Vixen with all files on a flash drive. I run a wimpy PC for the show (last year I was still running Win98SE) with XP so free to $50 will replace it or use my regular home PC that I sequence on. So knowing what your going to do or can do is more important than having spare everything. Brian
My back up plan is to work out where Lithgow Lights is and do an early morning raid..... failing that, visit the in-laws in Sydney and "drop by" fasteddy.....
