UK Member Wanting to make a go of it...

[Kreator]

Hello, I have signed up to this site because it seems by far the best one that I can get some information from and I would suggest we have roughly the same
voltage and LED lighting situations I am in the UK and the thought of animated Lights to music is something lacking over here.


I initally looked into Lite -O -Rama with one of their Commercial products but they do not ship to the UK and the shipping costs would in any case be prohibitive,
they have a UK distributor in Northern Ireland but they seem to only cater for Commercial Users (Shops, Malls etc) and not the domestic hobbyist they quoted me £900 for
a 16 channel box.


Your Wiki shows a Easy DMX LED controller;dmx decoder& driver would this be sufficient as a starting block to power the leds i assume i will also need to make the separate LED string controller boxes to steady on. I plan to use Vixen as the sequencer software


Any help and advice would be appreciated.


Btw my static display video


http://youtu.be/HeqtT5NJAzo?hd=1

 

[AAH]

Welcome Kreator
First question is why did you look at the commercial products rather than the diy targeted stuff like the CTP16PC ? It's price is a hell of a lot cheaper than what you said the commercial boards are worth over in the UK.
LOR are just about the only non-diy boards that do AC so if you want to control mains voltage ropes etc then they are nearly the only option. If you're looking to flash some low voltage leds then going dmx control is a lot cheaper option. There's not much difference in the controlling of the 2 protocols and you can mix and match LOR boards and dmx boards on the same network. Have a look at http://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/index.php/Controllers for the different controllers. The RITA controllers listed on the wiki link are what are commonly referred to by us as the "Ray Wu" controllers as he is the usual source of them from China.

 

[Kreator]

I looked at the LOR controller simply because (rightly or wrongly) I could string say four transformers onto an multiplug extension lead then hook that extension lead to the controller.


What i am looking for is a simple way to run 16 channels to start with, then build upon that, so I would appreciate
a run down of the equipment I need to get started . ie: connection to Computer, Power for Controller card , the controller card itself and FM transmission ( how does that exactly work!)


Most of the Lights I have at the moment are run from a 24V DC transformer with their own individual controller boxes, The Robin , Holly and Ropelight are 240V mains.

 

[AAH]

If most of your lights are 24vdc then I'd be very tempted to just forsake your mains rated ropes at the moment. Having both AC and DC controllers complicates things. If you're willing to go with just DC then I'd go with something like the Ray Wu 27ch DC board http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/701799/209915969-378111925/Easy-DMX-LED-controller-dmx-decoder-driver.html . I'm not sure if David_AVD sells stuff to the UK or not but he has both 24 and 48 channel dmx dimmers that are also suitable.

What you are going to need to synch lights is.
1) PC (pretty safe to say you've got 1)
2) Dimmer pcb (plenty of options from LOR down to the 3 channel dmx boards Ray Wu sells)
3) Adaptor. This depends on whether you go dmx or lor. The lor usb-485 dongle can do both but it would require an adaptor cable to swap pins to suit dmx unless it's used with a lor controller.
4) 24VDC power supply. These vary from about $20 for a 350W from Ray Wu to a couple hundred dollars for a top quality Meanwell branded supply. I've had no issue with my cheap and nasties this year but i did grab a couple extras just in case.
5) Cat 5 cable to run from adaptor to dimmer pcb
6) Synching software. LOR, LSP and Vixen are the 3 main choices. LOR has a big market share as it's where a lot of people first start synching. LSP is used a lot for the top end multi-thousand channel displays especially where there are lots of pixels. Vixen is free. I personally use and recommend the LOR as it's pretty easy to use compared to the other 2 and version 3 now has a built in auto sequencer if you get the superstar addon. A rough synchronised sequence can be hashed up in 30s (once channels and visualiser plan is done). See Autosequencing without CCRs to see how easy it is.
7) An amplifier for belting out the tunes out at street level and/or an fm transmitter. Both of these plug into your speaker output on the pc. If you have a fm transmitter then you'll have to put some sort of "tune to 123.4 FM" up so that people know where to listen.

 

[fasteddy]

Welcome to ACL, the advice that AAH has given you is good advice. If your wanting to do something this year then you may be pushing as there are a few things to learn and items to get but thats not saying still have a go if yiou have the time and ambition to do so. But if you have a longer term vision then take your time to absorb the information and jump into the chat, there maybe many people in there but sometimes we are all busy especially at this time of the year but most times someone will help.

there is also this link that will give you some information on what to connect to what
http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,1211.0.html