up's and down's of your 2014 display

[lizardking]

So who was absolutely stunned with how their display turned out and who thinks they should have done something different or did something go wrong, what did you discover about your display that you didnt realise , did you switch programs and was it easier or harder to work with , any wiring or heat problems something you bought and it didnt work how you thought it would or did you buy something that just didnt work

 

[aussiexmas]

My final show (ever) has now been run. We shut down the last show last night with a new years eve 'lights shutdown' party for family & friends. Dismantling will begin today (weather permitting).


Show ran flawlessly (except for one night when I had a blue screen crash). Crowds were very large and donations just passed $5000. The results from the Brisbane 4KQ lights contest exceeded my wildest expectations, when the show was awarded not only "Best Synchronized Lights and Music" category, but also "Brisbane's Best Lights". I have had the lights professionally videoed and will post video later.


While I did not add any new songs this year, there were quite a few changes to the lights with new and relocated lights to enhance the layout and visual appeal. Maybe my only regret was not doing a 'talking heads' section of the display.


As you know, I have been a dedicated LOR user throughout and I cannot fault the LOR hardware and software for the type of show I ran. While I have largely based my show on strings and icicles (mostly Big W), I have used some dumb RGB strip and modules to good effect (spinners & stars) and CCRs for outlines. This year I added a couple of CCB strings to good effect and this boosted my channel count by 320 to about 1000.


While I am keeping a number of lights & controllers for a small 'animation only' display for future years, the remainder of the lights are all spoken for.


I hope everybody had a successful and happy festive lights season.


[SIZE=x-large]Happy New Year for 2015[/SIZE]

 

[mborg10]

My show ran great and really showed the capabilities of my 2000 pixel mega tree.
The amount of channels were lost on the crowd so 2015 I'll be adding some big matrix so I can cover the entire house in colour.

 

[firebug]

My ups were when my lights were working...

My downs were when my lights were not working...

 

[DanJ]

My ups were the ONE NIGHT my display ran (well mostly anyway). My downs were the rest of the time that I couldn't get my display running correctly. My fault--I started too late building a megatree; this late start resulted in my not having enough time to troubleshoot various electronic problems with my controllers & display elements. Painful but valuable learning experience. I will start EARLY in 2015 and remainder of time!!!!

 

[nzlongfellow]

Downs
Work kept me away from home, plus relocated to another town so did not think I would have a show at all.
Could not get faces working (not enough time home).


Ups.
Got invited back to a town to manage a variety fundraiser concert and put up a display.
Managed to get half my displays working and put on a reasonable show. Ran a show for 2 days that ppl paid to come watch and raised $460.00
Learnt about dumb and RGB pixels, networking, NutCtacker/xLights, power injection, Buck converters, DMX control.
Got involved with ACL with over 300 posts.

 

[Karob]

My 2014 display was my happiest ever,


The Good


: Increased channel count to 6500 from around 3000
: 1st year running Vixen which worked well
: Added the pixel strips to my mega tree to keep nodes in the same spacing, best improvement as the amount of people noticing and commenting on the tree was great.
: Finally installed my FM Transmitter that I have only had for a year and half, should have done it ages ago


The Bad


: Show PC could not handle the lights with some interesting bits of flashing lights when it shouldnt
: Vixen did crash one night with about 50 people watching at the front, took a restart and some tinkering around to get it going again.


If anything I am feeling very pleased with the progress and looking forward to next years show, with some new additions to be added (matrix and more arch's) I am already looking at starting sequencing for 2015

 

[Beacy]

Aussiechristmas


Sad to hear it is your last year you have been a pioneer in this hobby and will be missed by many that you have entertained over the years and the many here that you have helped start out.


On mine total disappointment left too much to chance and got caught with lights not turning up in time, software being pushed past its limit and alternatives (Pi) not getting set up in time.


However we have learnt that the pixicles(2,400 of them) can work and look great and what tweaking we can do to make them better and that the mega star although under sequenced - as were the pixicles can look great.


Now with everything up it's all about next year and tweaking the bugs out now whilst it is all still up and adding 1,000's of more channels


But in spit of this all we raised more money this year for our charity than ever before.... go figure.

 

[Habbosrus]

I have been very lucky with my show. In the week preceding my "lights on", one of my controllers decided to stop working. Luckily Luke from Advatek Lighting came to the rescue and I received a Pixlite 4 on the Saturday morning of my planned start day. After that everything went great. Lots of people enjoyed our little show and I had a fantastic time handing out candy canes (nearly 2,400 of them) to our visitors. Everything worked the way it was meant to, visitors behaved, I got to show a number people behind the scenes and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for a month . The only down side is I still don't have any decent video to show. If any of our ACL members that visited and were able to get some pics or video, I'd definitely appreciate it if you could share them with me.

 

[SKMoss]

Down - I didn't have a display of any kind.


Up - Running into someone who works with Pixel lights, got me interested. Finding ACL and a few other places to get me knowledge.

 

[Eastwood16G]

This post makes out we are a bunch of sad bastards. I've seen some of your awesome displays posted. My display was well below my expectations. Especially when I forgot to turn it on .., and when I turned it on but Vixen was a bit unforgiving. Otherwise the kids loved it. R