Hello from Brisbane

F

fxxxrr

New elf
Joined
Aug 31, 2014
Messages
39
been putting up store ought lights for a few years now, the usual transformer style with built in controllers,
few rope lights, have just bought from evil bay a 6m x 4m net and 4 sets of meteor shower lights.

Now the tricky part

Im looking for a plug and play control system,
nothing to elaborate, something I can plug into my laptop, and plug my lights into a box with say 16 channels or something like that.
I cant get my head around programming as such, so the more simple the better.
I understand how the LED light strings work and am confident enough to modify them to adapt to a system.

I see there is a few people in Brisbane, on here.

is there a system I can buy that has everything I need for say under 400 bucks?

thanks in advance for any advice
 
Welcome to ACL.

Are the net lights off eBay a low voltage (with transformer) item?

Do you just want to turn them on/off or have full control?

Best for you to ask questions here now before buying any more lights.
 
Welcome to ACL
There certainly are some members around Brissie way and there's a few that would give you a hand if you asked. Before you get too carried away you ought to have a read of the ACL 101 that's currently at http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=5803.0 until it finishes it's rewrite.
You can easily get going for $400. Have a look around and pop into chat if you've got any questions.
 
Hi Fxxxrr,

Welcome to ACL.
As AAH has said the Light o Rama plug and play system is a very quick way to get up and running in your first year to help you understand the basics of these systems. After that the Sky and your wallet are the only limits.
depending of which side of the city you are there may be a member that would be willing to give you a crash coarse into animated Lighting.
I myself am on the West Side.
 
Hi Guys and thanks for the welcomes
Net lights are 240v, I can figure out how to switch hem if I want to, I just want to set up some lights to run to music rather than just have everything on random patterns.
I don't mind if not all my lights run off it initially.
I am so confused by all the systems available,
a crash course from some one would be great, im located bayside ( near Cleveland)
I don't want to enter 4kq xmas lights or anything, or get onto any xmas light tours, just have something fun for the people in y neighborhood
no ones selling a basic system by any chance? lol
 
Both David_AVD and I sell locally made DC controllers and we've also got USB dongles. Advatek in Melbourne also sell Aussie made DC controllers. Vixen 2, Vixen 3 and HLS are 3 free sequencing softwares.
 
I like the look of a few of the local made DC controllers
will have to try to work out which one suits best
 
As a new user you should be looking at 2 real choices. If you went with a LOR board and the basic LOR software then you would be limited to just the LOR protocol. LOR boards respond to DMX so you can pretty much control a LOR board with any sequencer except the couple of low level LOR software packages. The next stage is DMX which is used in EVERTHING including lights, lasers, servo's, snow machines etc. After you pass the need for DMX which is what most DC boards talk and is typically used with users from a few channels up to a few thousand then the next step is pixel control which is usually controlled with E1.31 (DMX over ethernet). No commercially made board that I know of does a direct E1.31 to DC although a new ACL has developed one himself. On that list you will see that I have a number of what appear to be really cheap DC boards. The only issue with these is that they connect into a 2801 or 2811 pixel network (which comes out of an E1.31 board) and as such you have to have pixels or at least a pixel board to use them. The exception to this rule is my 2801DC boards that can be directly controlled off a Raspberry Pi or Beagle Bone.

Confused?
It's actually quite easy once you have a board and dongle.
 
Welcome.gif

to ACL
 
DMX36 is this what I need?
my brain goes into meltdown when you day things like E1.31 and 2811 and 2081

will that work with vixen 3?
will that control my store bought Led strings from kmart big w etc if I take off the controllers and power packs? and will that let me control the individual colours of a multicolour string or will the whole string just come on at once?
 
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