Klayfish
New elf
Wanted to stop in and introduce myself before I start doing all kinds of poking around to try to learn RGB lighting. A bit of background on myself, as it relates to Christmas displays:
I live in rural Pennsylvania. I'm in a very small town, about 60 miles (100km) north of Philadelphia. It's a lot of farm land out here, nice and peaceful and quiet. We have 3.5 acres of land, so lots of room to decorate. Downside to that is we live on a "main" roadway, which has no shoulder or anywhere to stop. So people who want to see our display have to pull into our driveway. We set off an area in our grass for parking each year.
I've built up my display over the past 15 years. Started with about 300 static lights on our bushes and has grown every year since. It was always a static display until 2012 when I tried LOR with 16 channels. Last year I got a second controller, so I had 32 channels. They controlled about 8000 lights. My display had another 10,000 or so static lights. It also had 7 blow ups, some wire frame pieces and some other odds and ends. I even put an old car in the display. I painted it to look like a Hot Wheels toy car and put a big bow on it (cars are my other hobby) with a blow up Santa next to it.
My display last year was almost all regular incan lights. I went to all the stores after Christmas and picked up as many LEDs as I could, so I could start converting my display. I bought about 20,000. This year I'd also like to dip my toe into RGB, which is why I'm here. I have absolutely zero knowledge of it at all, heck I'm still very much a novice at learning the basics of LORs Sequence Editor. To make it more of a challenge, I'm not highly skilled in computers or electronics either. I don't know how to solder or build computers. I realize with those limitations, it's going to be challenging. I was pointed here from LOR, as it was suggested to look into a Sandevice controller and 2811 strips...but I didn't even know what those were. :-[
So I know I've got a lot to read and a lot to learn. My goal isn't to have a wild RGB display this year, but just to have one prop that uses RGB. I'm hoping to learn enough that I can do this myself and sequence it myself. I'll ask your patience while I ask some really silly questions and show my complete lack of computer and electrical skills.
I live in rural Pennsylvania. I'm in a very small town, about 60 miles (100km) north of Philadelphia. It's a lot of farm land out here, nice and peaceful and quiet. We have 3.5 acres of land, so lots of room to decorate. Downside to that is we live on a "main" roadway, which has no shoulder or anywhere to stop. So people who want to see our display have to pull into our driveway. We set off an area in our grass for parking each year.
I've built up my display over the past 15 years. Started with about 300 static lights on our bushes and has grown every year since. It was always a static display until 2012 when I tried LOR with 16 channels. Last year I got a second controller, so I had 32 channels. They controlled about 8000 lights. My display had another 10,000 or so static lights. It also had 7 blow ups, some wire frame pieces and some other odds and ends. I even put an old car in the display. I painted it to look like a Hot Wheels toy car and put a big bow on it (cars are my other hobby) with a blow up Santa next to it.
My display last year was almost all regular incan lights. I went to all the stores after Christmas and picked up as many LEDs as I could, so I could start converting my display. I bought about 20,000. This year I'd also like to dip my toe into RGB, which is why I'm here. I have absolutely zero knowledge of it at all, heck I'm still very much a novice at learning the basics of LORs Sequence Editor. To make it more of a challenge, I'm not highly skilled in computers or electronics either. I don't know how to solder or build computers. I realize with those limitations, it's going to be challenging. I was pointed here from LOR, as it was suggested to look into a Sandevice controller and 2811 strips...but I didn't even know what those were. :-[
So I know I've got a lot to read and a lot to learn. My goal isn't to have a wild RGB display this year, but just to have one prop that uses RGB. I'm hoping to learn enough that I can do this myself and sequence it myself. I'll ask your patience while I ask some really silly questions and show my complete lack of computer and electrical skills.
