Tips and Tricks to tidy this mess up...

[Lights on Nubrena]

Just wondering if there are any tips or tools people use to tidy up all their wires.

I have tested all my connections, voltage and lights and everything works great just looks messy.

 

[scamper]

You would have to be pretty fussy to get it much better.
I have done similar and all I have done different is use very heavy duty cable coming from the power supply to the distribution block, then ran jumpers on one side of the block. This means I only have 3 wires from each supply and they are cut to a length that makes them run neatly.
It is a little bit of extra effort in running the cable to where you want it and cut it accordingly.
But after I did the first one like that, I got slack afterwards

 

[the grinch]

Hey mate what you have done doesn't look too bad just a little patience with a few more little cable ties in a few places will help ! as far as hints and tips to get neater requires much patience possibly a little ocd ? To the point that each wire is following the last wire exactly and lengths cut perfectly and everything in place and order. require s a lot of time and at the end of the day who really cares most importantly is that its safe and Secondly it works ! And yeah I thinks I get a little bit ocd and causes me to lose a lot of valuable time that I could be doing other things!

 

[AAH]

View attachment 11552 Hey mate what you have done doesn't look too bad just a little patience with a few more little cable ties in a few places will help ! as far as hints and tips to get neater requires much patience possibly a little ocd ? To the point that each wire is following the last wire exactly and lengths cut perfectly and everything in place and order. require s a lot of time and at the end of the day who really cares most importantly is that its safe and Secondly it works ! And yeah I thinks I get a little bit ocd and causes me to lose a lot of valuable time that I could be doing other things!

Being a steel enclosure and with mains inside it both the enclosure itself and the door should be earthed. They may be but I didn't notice it in the pic. I personally would be tempted to vent it with 1200-1500W worth of power supplies in there. The steel may conduct enough heat out to keep it cool but venting helps to ensure that things stay cool.

 

[the grinch]

Being a steel enclosure and with mains inside it both the enclosure itself and the door should be earthed. They may be but I didn't notice it in the pic. I personally would be tempted to vent it with 1200-1500W worth of power supplies in there. The steel may conduct enough heat out to keep it cool but venting helps to ensure that things stay cool.

Hey alan thanks for your concern yep have earths now and door is earthed to enclosure as not too rely on hinges as earth and is vented on both sides top and bottom too let heat rising out now. sorry pic I posted was an early photo not quite finished without extra earthing and the vents ! I did cram an awful lot in there and was curious about the heat but hasnt been an issue I did monitor via falcon controller temp did drop by 2 degrees with door open whilst display is running

 

[David_AVD]

I have a small 12V fan in the vent at the top of each of mine/

 

[Boof63]

Question's i have are,
1. where do you hang these control boxs?
2. how far from the controller box to your lights
3. do run other power supplies for lights at the models themselves
The reason i ask is all my gear is in plastic tubs alongside/close to (inside 15') to the model .
Just run Cat5 and extension cords for power to each controller setup.
So wondering how you guys manage to connect everything together in your displays
Cheers Boof63

 

[scamper]

Question's i have are,
1. where do you hang these control boxs?
2. how far from the controller box to your lights
3. do run other power supplies for lights at the models themselves
The reason i ask is all my gear is in plastic tubs alongside/close to (inside 15') to the model .
Just run Cat5 and extension cords for power to each controller setup.
So wondering how you guys manage to connect everything together in your displays
Cheers Boof63

Personally I have 2 main control box's. 1 is under the mega tree and has 3 power supplies a f16 pixel driver and a couple dmx boards.
The other is on my veranda that has 2 power supplies a f16 pixel board a dmx board a fm transmitter, an Ethernet switch and the falcon pi, the data is sent from here to the box under the tree.
These 2 do most of the work, in that all of my pixels are run from them, I will run a long run (max 4m) and loop all the elements. the f16's have 4 dmx outputs so I run all the dumb controllers through these.
I have several other boxes around the place for power injection, just so I don't need to run too far because of voltage drop.
and another couple with dumb controllers in. It makes more sense to have a dumb controller close to the props as they all require individual wiring which can add up very quickly.
With my pixels, I only have 1 prop in the whole display that gets its power from the board, otherwise it is data only and power is injected to all of the props where required.
Pretty much everything I do is thought about to achieve in the cheapest and easiest way, So like I said about wires, for a 12 channel controller, it is cheaper to buy a box than run 4 separate wires. Pixels I just loop so i am only using as much wire to go from 1 prop to the next and power injection I use heavy duty 2 core wire and can loop (in parallel) up to 6 props before needing another cable. Which is also why I have separate enclosures around the yard with just power supplies in.
Hope this is more helpful than confusing

 

[Kitman]

Just wondering if there are any tips or tools people use to tidy up all their wires.

I have tested all my connections, voltage and lights and everything works great just looks messy.

Just looking at your layout, the little black boxes on top of the power supplies, are they Volt meter's or Amp meters? If they are Amp Meters I suspect that they won't be giving you a correct indication of the amount of amps being drawn from the power supply as most amp meters need to be wired in sequence with the load hanging off the amp meter. If they are volt meters all good, just curios.

 

[Lights on Nubrena]

Just looking at your layout, the little black boxes on top of the power supplies, are they Volt meter's or Amp meters? If they are Amp Meters I suspect that they won't be giving you a correct indication of the amount of amps being drawn from the power supply as most amp meters need to be wired in sequence with the load hanging off the amp meter. If they are volt meters all good, just curios.

Volts