Hi all,
Greetings from the cold white north (especially right now). I am in my 2nd year of doing a light display. I decided to go the professional purchase route initially because I knew as a single father of a toddler (1 yo at the time I made the leap), I only had so much time in the day...but I was also bound and determined to make my neighborhood cool again for Halloween and Christmas.
Started last year with a simple singing pumpkin sitting in the yard and RGB Pixels covering my roof line. It took a lot of time to just get all the channeling up (for the pixels), figure out how to set everything up etc. The vendor provided a circular show using about 10 songs. For Christmas it moved to a singing reindeer and I added a few LED items (their singing faces dummy controllers can also just turn on/off other LED elements, which can add some additional fun).
This year I expanded to RGB across my garages, two faces for each holiday, a stage for the faces to perform on, and some additional LED pieces for Christmas. I also had a more custom show created for Christmas. This year I built a lot of things myself in the prop department, but bit off way more than I should of...so I am happy I am done
So why am I hear? Well I really want to take things to the next level, but after spending a lot of $$ with the vendor, the customer service, etc. have left me wanting. I have a lot of bold plans, but feel its probably time I start thinking about taking things over myself. Hence I have started to teach myself and go down the path of figuring out what I would need to do to extend what I have and customize to be my own.
Not really sure which forum to start posting questions and discussions? After looking through a lot of other sites and reading the great 101 document, I have a much better understanding of what I have. I own a web consulting company, so this stuff does not intimidate me, except maybe some of the electrical pieces.
Below is my setup. If you have any thoughts on which channel I should start on, it would be greatly appreciated.
Jolt Lighting Lumiblox DMX controller - 1 ethernet channel connects to my two dummy controllers (they are currently buried in snow in their cases, so can't look at any brand, but think they are custom builds), 1 ethernet channel connects to the Pixel Driver
4 output RGB Pixel Driver - This is branded with the company logo, so I think its a custom build. I am currently using 3 out of the 4 outputs
Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply
Digital FM Transmitter for the Music
The show is run from a SD card and contains DMX, ALM and MP3 files. I understand what a DMX file is, def know what an MP3 file is, but not sure what an ALM is. Does anyone know if there is one of the sequencing software packages I might be able to open these with? Or maybe I am missing something (probably)
Anyway thanks for reading through this really long intro. Hope it lets you know a bit about what I am trying to do. Any guidance would be greatly helpful. Where I am not totally opposed to having to start over (with sequencing and control), since I have already invested heavily, I am hoping I can somehow reuse the stuff that has already been done and just add on to that.
Thanks!
Virgil
Greetings from the cold white north (especially right now). I am in my 2nd year of doing a light display. I decided to go the professional purchase route initially because I knew as a single father of a toddler (1 yo at the time I made the leap), I only had so much time in the day...but I was also bound and determined to make my neighborhood cool again for Halloween and Christmas.
Started last year with a simple singing pumpkin sitting in the yard and RGB Pixels covering my roof line. It took a lot of time to just get all the channeling up (for the pixels), figure out how to set everything up etc. The vendor provided a circular show using about 10 songs. For Christmas it moved to a singing reindeer and I added a few LED items (their singing faces dummy controllers can also just turn on/off other LED elements, which can add some additional fun).
This year I expanded to RGB across my garages, two faces for each holiday, a stage for the faces to perform on, and some additional LED pieces for Christmas. I also had a more custom show created for Christmas. This year I built a lot of things myself in the prop department, but bit off way more than I should of...so I am happy I am done
So why am I hear? Well I really want to take things to the next level, but after spending a lot of $$ with the vendor, the customer service, etc. have left me wanting. I have a lot of bold plans, but feel its probably time I start thinking about taking things over myself. Hence I have started to teach myself and go down the path of figuring out what I would need to do to extend what I have and customize to be my own.
Not really sure which forum to start posting questions and discussions? After looking through a lot of other sites and reading the great 101 document, I have a much better understanding of what I have. I own a web consulting company, so this stuff does not intimidate me, except maybe some of the electrical pieces.
Below is my setup. If you have any thoughts on which channel I should start on, it would be greatly appreciated.
Jolt Lighting Lumiblox DMX controller - 1 ethernet channel connects to my two dummy controllers (they are currently buried in snow in their cases, so can't look at any brand, but think they are custom builds), 1 ethernet channel connects to the Pixel Driver
4 output RGB Pixel Driver - This is branded with the company logo, so I think its a custom build. I am currently using 3 out of the 4 outputs
Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply
Digital FM Transmitter for the Music
The show is run from a SD card and contains DMX, ALM and MP3 files. I understand what a DMX file is, def know what an MP3 file is, but not sure what an ALM is. Does anyone know if there is one of the sequencing software packages I might be able to open these with? Or maybe I am missing something (probably)
Anyway thanks for reading through this really long intro. Hope it lets you know a bit about what I am trying to do. Any guidance would be greatly helpful. Where I am not totally opposed to having to start over (with sequencing and control), since I have already invested heavily, I am hoping I can somehow reuse the stuff that has already been done and just add on to that.
Thanks!
Virgil
