Hello Hello

P

pog

New elf
Joined
Oct 8, 2015
Messages
4
Location
Townsville
Hi all,


Just thought I'd drop in and introduce myself. I have checked out the boards a couple of times over the last year or so, but only decided to join a few days ago.


I've always loved doing Christmas lights. [font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]My partner (now husband) took a little convincing when I first moved into his house, but by the second year I had given him a bit of the Xmas light bug. His only rule was that everything had to be solar powered, which was fine by me. At least I got to do lights :p[/font]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Now we have given a few of the neighbours the bug as well, which is great, but some of them are getting too good. The competitive streak in me is wanting to go bigger and better. Our solar lights are looking very dull in comparison and seem to be breaking far to often. To my surprise, this year for my birthday my husband bought me a LOR 240V AC controller. True love is surely when you let your wife use the electricity to run her Xmas lights. :p[/font]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]After looking around the forums, we have come to realise the 240V AC controller isn't as great as my husband first thought it was when he bought it (and that most people have moved to DC controllers), however, we are determined to give it a go and use it as a learning experience. Electronics was not one of my best subjects in high school (which was a fair while ago now), but my husband knows a little from doing engineering at uni. I managed to find a few sets of static string LED lights to avoid having to mess around bypassing multifunction controllers, and they appear to have fairly good transformers attached to them. I'm hoping these will run ok, though I'm assuming dimming will be a no go. Does anyone know anywhere to get some lights that I can use with the AC controller that are able to be dimmed?[/font]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Anyway... thanks for reading. Wish me luck for my first year of programming lights. :)[/font]
 
Hi pog

Welcome to ACL

You're unfortunately right that 240V controllers are not suitable for many types of lights. You'd need lights that are 240V with no transformer to be able to safely flash them fast or dim them. Some ropelights will work but I wouldn't bother with them because they generally have a short lifespan. One option you have is this style of light set but I have no idea whether this particular one is any good; IP23 isn't a fantastic rating http://edisonlightglobes.com/Shop/shop/fittings/festoon-lights/vintage-edison-party-lighting-10m-string-lights-240v/

The good thing is that (as far as I know) you can easily run a LOR AC controller alongside DC DMX controllers with a DMX source and a crossover cable.

One thing to keep in mind when buying light sets with 8 function controllers is that they need to have three or more wires between the controller and lights or they'll be incompatible with DC controllers. This doesn't apply if there is no 8 function controller.

If you want to try the light sets with plugpacks and the 240V controller, my understanding is the ones with the heavy plugpacks are less intolerant about being controlled with a 240V controller. Another problem caused by having light sets which don't draw enough power is that the 240V controller can forget to turn the channel off until you add more load to it.

It is a bit more work to set up for the first time but I strongly recommend going the DC route which is what I did because I'd thoroughly researched before investing in hardware. If power consumption is a concern, each LED light set only draws a few watts; for example my sets of 200 LEDs draw about 7 watts each when used with the DC control. RGB draws more but it is worth it IMO.

There is a controller comparison here
http://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/Controllers
 
Welcome.gif

to ACL

Not so great for the budget but always better when both decision makers have CLAP. :)
Christmas Lighting Addiction Problem
 
G'day Pog, welcome to ACL. I don't know anything about LOR and 240v gear, so I won't be going near that. I will say that you have found a great site with awesome members ready and willing to help. Whichever way you go I'm sure there will be members here to help with advice. Good luck and looking forward to seeing some pics.
 
Hi Pong, i am a LOR user, you can buy BigW fairy strings to run 16channel residential but you need to DIY lights controller to standby. Check out ACL 101 for tutorial to solder to standby mode. Note, do not buy bigW rope light as it doesn't work with LOR. And also Lytworx (it spell correct ?) from Bunnings doesn't work too.
 
Don't get your AC and DC control confused. Nothing with a low voltage plugpack is all that great for AC control unless the plugpack itself has an AC output and you run the AC controller at a low AC voltage. pog you might want to consider this option.

The Lytworx strings have the problem I mentioned above where there are only 2 wires. The Big W strings this year have that problem too but they didn't previously. They are no good for AC or DC control.
 
Back
Top