Looking for Advice on First Commercial Project

[johnson8ryley]

Hey guys,

This year I'll be working with a 100 acre pumpkin patch to do a "winter wonderland" Christmas lights show. I've been talking with the owner for over a year now but talks stopped May last year once COVID hit. I'm set to meet with the owner tomorrow to begin buying controllers for a 2021 display and discuss prop ideas.

My main question for you guys is, what are some things I should ask the owner tomorrow as we walk the farm, begin buying controllers, etc. The obvious "what kind of lights" comes to mind, along with pixels props, display elements, etc. I know I'm missing some things you guys might think are worth asking him.

Some important info:

• I've been programming residential shows for about 10 years now.
• I'm a senior in college pursuing a degree in electrical engineering.
• Liabilities will be covered by the farm
• All lights, controllers, etc will be bought and owned by the farm.
• My hourly wage has been set and the owner knows roughly how much this project is going to cost
• The farm has a licensed electrician on-hand should we need power routed underground to areas around the farm

I fully understand how large of a project this is going to be. I do plan to do go the DIY route with a lot of pixels, controllers, to save costs. Is there anything you guys can think of that might be important to ask the owner? Also equally important, what long distance controllers would you guys recommend? There may be synchronized elements that are literally on the other side of the farm 300+ft away, so I'll need to look into controllers like Advatek and Falcon's long distance receivers, but I'm sure you guys have other ideas to help with long distance, isolated elements.

 

[OzAz]

I'd be wary of saving costs with cheaper DIY products, the costs of repairing/replacing might end up being more in the long run.

 

[johnson8ryley]

design your HoHoHo so any idiot can plug it in. when things get big you don't want to to be just you doing everything.

The show is going to consist of a mixture of AC controllers and RGB controllers but I will be sure to design the RGB controllers at least to be mostly plug and play. If not just simply buying plug and play solutions. But that is a good point you raise. I imagine there’s going to be a couple farm helpers helping me put everything up

 

[johnson8ryley]

I'd be wary of saving costs with cheaper DIY products, the costs of repairing/replacing might end up being more in the long run.

Valid point Oz. When I say DIY, I mostly am referring to pixels and me wiring them but if I can, I might find pixel strands already wired with waterproof three prong adapters. That along with waterproofing power supplies and controllers. Do you know of any sellers that ship RGB products with preinstalled 3 prong connectors?

I do plan to discuss with the owner that there is a trade off between DIY and buying professional products in terms of long term repairs and replacements. I think he is aware that lights and such go out overtime but that is a good point that I need to bring up to him so thank you!

 

[johnson8ryley]

This is the norm for pixel strings.

Most of the pixel strings I buy from China and Ray Wuh generally don’t have a three prong connector already wired on to the ends but maybe I’m missing something

 

[uncledan]

You can order custom strings in any length with any pigtail (3 wire connector) you want

 

[OzAz]

yes you are You can buy pixels without connectors, or with JST connectors, but most of the vendors now offer a choice of waterproof 3 pin connector, male plug on input, female on output, as can be seen in this example https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32947251760.html (note: xconnect is the same as on holidaycoro products, and is, in some people's opinions, better than the ray wu one).
You can get strings of 50 or 100 pixels or some vendors offer custom length strings. ETOP offer custom strings for some of the bosocyo coro props.

 

[Mark_M]

Presuming this is the same place to a thread last year; Facebook page shows that there is a lot of pixels already!

First main statement I'm going to make;
Don't just replace everything because you've got the money! Reuse things and give them life instead of filling the rubbish.

New items can be Falcon/Advatek but old stuff can stay LOR until it breaks.
xLights does LOR. Falcon controllers can output to LOR controllers too.

design your HoHoHo so any idiot can plug it in

Exactly. Standardized connectors for everything. I would suggest to a standardised voltage.
But using a certain connector for different voltages will stop them from being mixed.
Mentioned already in discussion is connectors, this is a small image I've found online with the 3 main types.



"Standardized" ideas does also bring me to my next thoughts.
Differential controllers like the Falcon F48 and LOR use RJ45 connectors, which is also used for networking.
Anything networking should keep it's RJ45 connector and LOR networking could get a different 8 pin plug, same does for differential from Falcon/Advatek controllers.

Obviously switching connectors is a suggestion.
Question to ask yourself is; are you the only one touching lights or would someone 'try' to do something?
Second question to ask yourself is; 'How?'. Maybe be having a different connector for the LOR data on the outside of a controller box but on the inside it converts into an RJ45 again for the device.

Most of the pixel strings I buy from China and Ray Wu generally don’t have a three prong connector already wired on to the ends but maybe I’m missing something

Specify in an email to Ray or one of the other sellers. You can also get extra connectors to wire into controllers or use for repairs. Common term is 'pig tails'.
Seller list is in the 101 manual.

 

[i13]

When buying pixels with connectors already attached, remember to keep the wiring standard consistent. You don't want some of them to be incompatible with others due to the three pins being used in a different order.

 

[Notenoughlights]

I'm different, found these connectors Here before I really started putting full waterproof connectors on anything, I find them cheap enough and did not have a single issue over the 2020 Christmas season even with all the rain we had.
You just need to be happy to solder your wires, and have plenty of heatshrink on hand to cover the wires after

 

[Notenoughlights]

I've attached a photo next to a AAA battery for size comparison. Pigtails I've seen seem to be a lot larger than these when watching behind the scenes videos. @Katekate

Edit: seems the attachment failed.


View: https://i.imgur.com/Wp2vUAP.png

 

[Notenoughlights]

The two look very similar, I guess it's an option for people to buy bulk pigtails who use Xconnect in their setups.

 

[johnson8ryley]

yes you are You can buy pixels without connectors, or with JST connectors, but most of the vendors now offer a choice of waterproof 3 pin connector, male plug on input, female on output, as can be seen in this example https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32947251760.html (note: xconnect is the same as on holidaycoro products, and is, in some people's opinions, better than the ray wu one).
You can get strings of 50 or 100 pixels or some vendors offer custom length strings. ETOP offer custom strings for some of the bosocyo coro props.

Thank you for informing me Oz! I'm only aware of buying pixel strips from Ray Wu with their silly JST connector on the end. It never even dawned on me that "duh", I can just ask for whatever I order to already come with. I will probably stick with Xconnect pig tails as those are the same connectors holidaycoro uses and I know the farm owner is very pleased with buying their prepackaged mega tree and prepackaged pixel arches.
There will be other elements on the farm that will be DIY pixel projects so for simplicity sake, I'll standardized on the farm to make sure it's all xconnect.

Obviously switching connectors is a suggestion.
Question to ask yourself is; are you the only one touching lights or would someone 'try' to do something?
Second question to ask yourself is; 'How?'. Maybe be having a different connector for the LOR data on the outside of a controller box but on the inside it converts into an RJ45 again for the device.

This may be too long of an answer, but long story short I've come to terms to become an employee of the farm. That way instead of filing my company, Lights of Lincoln, as an actual business and dealing with taxes, permits, insurance, etc, I will be an employee of the farm, they'll pay me on a regularly basis, and have the right to terminate me at any time which we both agreed was fair and worked out the best as the farm has liability insurance for everything. That being said, since I will be an employee, I will be "on call" for a lot of things as issues arise and will be the only one to be messing with the lights. While there will be farm hands helping install some things around the farm like traditional AC lights, building arch tunnel ways, etc. I will be doing mostly everything with networking, wiring, etc.

 

[johnson8ryley]

The show is going to have many isolated units throughout the farm. There will be a 100ft pixel archway tunnel that a train will drive under. That will be on the other side of the farm so there will be some unit controlling lights over there isolated and pumping music through speakers as the train drives underneath it.

The owner also wants 4-8 pixels strip arches somewhere around the farm dancing around also isolated from everything else. So that in and of itself will be it's own "display" with its own music, speakers, etc

Then there will be a main barn on the property that will be decorated similar to a traditional house (RGB roof, singing faces, other AC lights, etc). Near/Attached to the barn will be 2 of HolidayCoro's pixels trees. The trees will be in sync with the barn itself so this will be probably the largest task of them all but the owner loved the idea of buying preprogrammed sequences for 16x50 pixel mega trees and saving costs and time.

@OzAz or @Mark_M I feel bad starting another thread for this simple question so I'll see what you guys think. The owner liked when he saw the brightness and light quantity of the 16x50 CCR pixel mega tree that holiday coro sells. However, the light show be a walkaround experience and the CCR pixel strip tree I noticed is more for audiences 20ft+ away and has no rear. We'll be buying 2 trees for the farm and I'm interested in the 360 degrees (32x50) pixel tree. I may be confusing myself here, but it seems like pixel density and clarity is less with those pixel node trees. I would like to map Faces, objects, letters, etc to those trees, but I'm worried that those 32x50 pixel node trees aren't dense enough to make out scrolling words, faces, etc. Is this a valid concern of mine or am I overthinking this? (Side Note: I would be copying whatever sequences and faces on the 320degree tree to the backside of the tree so people from both directions can see the tree. I'm just worried about how well words, faces, etc will show upon a pixel node tree versus a pixel strip tree)

sorry I talk to much, thanks guys

 

[Notenoughlights]

The show is going to have many isolated units throughout the farm. There will be a 100ft pixel archway tunnel that a train will drive under. That will be on the other side of the farm so there will be some unit controlling lights over there isolated and pumping music through speakers as the train drives underneath it.

The owner also wants 4-8 pixels strip arches somewhere around the farm dancing around also isolated from everything else. So that in and of itself will be it's own "display" with its own music, speakers, etc

My 2 cents on how I would tackle this

I would have multiple Raspberry Pi's running FPP that on power-up run a predefined playlist of your sequences (One Raspberry Pi per "display" you have mentioned) This would narrow down the number of network cables required to run from a switch somewhere else on the property to control these, they would essentially be Plug and play, running from the same power source as the lights.
This should make it easier to manage on a whole, as you would know if that part of the display is not working, it's isolated to only one area, no cables to get tampered with other than the mains supply that I assume will be protected anyway, and much less work for you in terms of running extra wiring, dealing with extra universes etc on the main setup.