Hi All,
Firstly let me say from my readings of posts and the setup of the wiki, this by far is the most organised and civilised forum/community. Before researching lighting options, I had thoughts of writing my own sequencing software, designing lighting controllers/hardware and the definition of interfaces there in. It's good to see some very bright minds have already done the hardwork and putting it all back into the community.
So to set the scene, this....err...last year I came across Big W LEDs. Always wanting to put up some lights but balking at the cost, finally there were some within the price range of what looked to be reasonable quality. 2x warm white icicles went on the gutter and 3x warm white strings went around the trees. Cheap Big W rope lights also went in the window. It had graceful, simplistic blinky charm. That turned to head lowering shame after walking around the 'hood Christmas Eve and seeing some more enthusiastic (although uncontrolled) displays. Naturally, this meant LED war.
The first salvo was fired in the post Christmas sales, lining up for the door opening of Big W and filling my and my girlfriends arms with what we could grab of $10 starter kits. Without too much violence, we walked away with 7 starter kits and star LED rope lights, doubling the LED body count for the next year.
So my research on how to control the lighting has led me here and have been trolling through the great information over the holiday break and have spread sheeted a design (as well as designed it in Light Show Pro). I'll be making use of the LSP half price deal to drive it all, and have an ebay 6803 RGB strip (w/ stock standard super fun controller) on the way for assessment (for one offs Ray Wu was a bit expensive, but quantities will most likely be sourced from him). This is shaping up to great project for the next 12 months to kick it off what will be a display built on each year. I'm very much looking forward to learning from everyone's experience and idea's and god willing, having something to put back into the community
This LED war will be the war to end all LED wars. Hopefully it will lead to something of an LED arms race in the street.
Firstly let me say from my readings of posts and the setup of the wiki, this by far is the most organised and civilised forum/community. Before researching lighting options, I had thoughts of writing my own sequencing software, designing lighting controllers/hardware and the definition of interfaces there in. It's good to see some very bright minds have already done the hardwork and putting it all back into the community.
So to set the scene, this....err...last year I came across Big W LEDs. Always wanting to put up some lights but balking at the cost, finally there were some within the price range of what looked to be reasonable quality. 2x warm white icicles went on the gutter and 3x warm white strings went around the trees. Cheap Big W rope lights also went in the window. It had graceful, simplistic blinky charm. That turned to head lowering shame after walking around the 'hood Christmas Eve and seeing some more enthusiastic (although uncontrolled) displays. Naturally, this meant LED war.
The first salvo was fired in the post Christmas sales, lining up for the door opening of Big W and filling my and my girlfriends arms with what we could grab of $10 starter kits. Without too much violence, we walked away with 7 starter kits and star LED rope lights, doubling the LED body count for the next year.
So my research on how to control the lighting has led me here and have been trolling through the great information over the holiday break and have spread sheeted a design (as well as designed it in Light Show Pro). I'll be making use of the LSP half price deal to drive it all, and have an ebay 6803 RGB strip (w/ stock standard super fun controller) on the way for assessment (for one offs Ray Wu was a bit expensive, but quantities will most likely be sourced from him). This is shaping up to great project for the next 12 months to kick it off what will be a display built on each year. I'm very much looking forward to learning from everyone's experience and idea's and god willing, having something to put back into the community
This LED war will be the war to end all LED wars. Hopefully it will lead to something of an LED arms race in the street.