Hello everyone

[Minion mania]

I'd imagine everyone is quite busy at the moment getting ready for your shows. Myself, I am really new to this and am planning to start with a residential starter kit for 2016. I have been reading up on all the information I can find and I always come back to LOR as a great entry product.
I am from Central Queensland and have attended a particular light show for the last couple of years at Yeppoon. Last year I took my girls to watch the Frozen clip, it was amazing and a favourite. We'll done if the creator is on this site.
So it got me to thinking, I really want to get into this. No one in my local area does this as yet, that I am aware of so would really like to bring something like this to our community.
I've watched a lot of sequencing tutorials and it looks pretty challenging but I'm keen to give it a go.
My only question would be whether to buy 15 or 30 amp controllers? I am not really sure which is better for my purposes.
All the best, look forward to seeing the results of your hard work

 

[bjpc2716]

WELCOME ABOARD

 

[AAH]

LOR AC controllers are pretty much the most expensive way to get into animated lighting.
http://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/Controllers
For instance my DMX36 36 channel dc controller and a usb dongle works out at half the cost of 16 channels of LOR AC. All you need is a power supply on top of that and theoretically you could be blinking lights by tomorrow.

 

[gerry]

Welcome to ACL.


IMHO , I dont think that you should be buying LOR hardware.


there are any umber of more economical options.
Have a look at the Pixlite 4 - which will enable you to run RGB and has a DMX controller , the J1sys P2 or the larger Pixlite 16 / several other larger ones.


A group buy just completed for a Falcon F16v2 controller as well.

 

[i13]

Welcome to ACL

I would also advise against ordering from LOR. The majority of light sets sold in Australia now have lightweight plugpacks that don't work with AC controllers. LOR is in America where this may be less of an issue. On top of this, 240V is dangerous so we use low voltage setups. I don't think your question about the current draw (number of amps) will need answering once you see the variety of cheaper and more versatile options. The same goes for software; there are some pretty decent free options worth considering too.

You have the option of pixels which look similar to LOR's cosmic colour products but at a fraction of the price.

If you want to go with store-bought light sets then they need to have at least three wires between the 8-function controller and the lights. This doesn't apply when there is no 8-function controller.

Do you currently have any lights that you want to use in your future display?

I disagree with the statement that you could have lights blinking tomorrow. Don't rush into any purchases; take the time to learn and make informed decisions to get exactly what you want. It would be a shame to buy a setup and then replace it because you found out about something better. On the other hand it is still a good idea to have everything ready ahead of time. You have a whole year to learn, order and set up so make the most of it!

 

[dale82]

Welcome to ACL, I too would also advise not to purchase an LOR ac controller, Pixel controllers are the way to go. Download the 101 manual and go from there.

 

[Bird]

to ACL

First the disclaimer
Joining these forums and entering the chat room can give you CLAP!!!
Christmas Lighting Addiction Problem

If you haven't found it yet, the new revised 2nd addition AusChristmasLighting 101 manual is a great resource for all things RGB and more.

I use LOR controllers (120v) in the USA .. however I agree with others ... using 240v controllers where weather is warm and folks can end up walking through the display may not a good idea.
Keep in mind LOR also offers DC controllers. http://www1.lightorama.com/dc-low-voltage-boards/

 

[bjpc2716]

welcome acl

 

[Minion mania]

LOR AC controllers are pretty much the most expensive way to get into animated lighting.
http://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/Controllers
For instance my DMX36 36 channel dc controller and a usb dongle works out at half the cost of 16 channels of LOR AC. All you need is a power supply on top of that and theoretically you could be blinking lights by tomorrow.

Thankyou so much for the responses. I have looked into Vixen Software and Light Show Pro also. If I get started with Light Show Pro as opposed to LOR is it compatible with the DMX 36?
So I will need Sequencing software - Light Show Pro Licence, a DMX 36 Controller, a USB DMX dongle and pigtails to attach the strings to the controller??

Also, are the DMX's able to be daisy chained in the same way as the LOR 16's??

Thankyou so much everyone, I am trying to learn as much as I can, so that I can ;purchase something to get started.

 

[i13]

There is a fair bit of Light Show Pro criticism at the moment because they haven't had any updates for such a long time. I don't own Light Show Pro but I can verify that Vixen 3 is has the option to use USB DMX dongles. I have only used this with Vixen 2 because I've only upgraded to Vixen 3 this year and won't be using the USB dongle again.

The DMX controllers can be daisy chained up to a maximum of 512 channels. DMX is not able to run pixels though.

The USB dongle is a good starting point and worth having for testing purposes but I'd suggest getting an E1.31 controller with a DMX output if you're planning on using DMX long term due to their better reliability. Light Show Pro, Vixen, Hinkle's Lighting Sequencer and advanced LOR would all be able to output E1.31 directly but it is up to you to decide which software you prefer. E1.31 controllers can let you control the colour and brightness of every pixel light individually if you want to include pixels.

You don't need pigtails to attach lights to a controller but they are convenient to have in many applications, especially with pixels.

 

[AAH]

At this point in time I wouldn't buy either LOR or LSP as Vixen 3, Xlights 4 and HLS offer pretty much the same thing but at zero cost. The only advantage to LOR is that it is very simple to use. If you were after a comparative simplicity for a low channel count then Vixen 2 would be an alternative. DMX cannot directly run most common pixels. There are adaptor devices that will allow you to control up to 510 channels and there are actually some pixels that will receive dmx. The better option for pixels is always an E1.31 pixel controller.
Both dmx and LOR communicate via RS485 with the protocol varying between the 2. Both can be daisy chained up to 32 devices deep (according to the RS485 spec) with the reality being that you can potentially go to more devices than that as there are low power RS485 receivers commonly used now. For LOR that kinda means you can have 32 16 channel boards daisy chained (they do now have 24 channel boards) and for dmx you can daisy chain 32 deep with the number of channel per board varying from 3 to more than 60. With dmx you are limited to 512 channels that are addressable on a given dmx line that is generated by either a usb dongle or E1.31-dmx bridge.

 

[kel]