What to Buy

Pircy

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So the aim is to buy enough stuff from Ray Wu to get me well and truely moving along. My display will have the following elements at this stage:

21 christmas trees - 100 single colour leds per tree (27v).

6 arches - with 7 sections each of red, blue and white leds (about 40 lights of Big W leds per section) so 21 sections in total per arch (1080 leds total per arch) (27v i think)

7 Led balls that have a single 250 led strand each (27v)

14m dumb rgb strip light on gutters (12v) 30 lights per metre

5 window frames at about 5m rgb dumb strip each (12v 30 lights per metre)

about 15 x 10m lengths of 240v rope lights

4 x 600 led strings for fence/other uses.

I aim to add to this but I figure this is a good beginning. I know layouts affect the amount of power supplies/controllers I may use. I currently have bought 1 x ecg-dr4, 1 x ray 27channel controller, lots of cat 5 cable and crap loads of power extension cords.

What I am asking is can you please give me some idea of what an appropriate amount of power supplies and controller might be. Also any other funnies like fuses or bits and pieces that are not so obvious but are essential. I am looking to put an order on to Ray soon but dont want to buy too few or too much, just trying to get started but be economical for now. Thanks for your input
:D
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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The most important thing is to get plenty of the waterproof plugs as it makes the install and tear down process so much faster. The power supplies are going to depends on what lights you are having off what controller. You'll need to give wattage or amperage info on the lights to be able to calculate what power supplies are needed. With the dumb strip you'll also need to be conscious of the current that it draws to make sure that you aren't overloading outputs as the dumb rgb strip can require fairly high current outputs.
 

Pircy

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Thanks for the input AAH. Can you please provide a link to the plugs you would recommend. The strip I am using is 5050rgb, DC12V, 30 leds/m, 8w/m. The adapters on my plain Led strings seems to be a combination of 22v and 24v as per their power adapters but most in chat seem to say these run best at 27v.

I have only purchased some of the RGB strip so far, only enough to do the gutter line but not the windows. There is an obvious need to buy more. I have recently bought enough conduit to frame up all the windows. Is it better to buy smart RGB strip now? I know the cost is higher but I may be better off long term to buy this early even if I don't have the knowledge to program this to best effect yet???
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/50-pairs-4-Core-White-Waterproof-Line-15cm-long-each-male-and-female/701799_323485474.html for rgb dumb lighting and the 3 and 2 core equivalents for 2811 pixels and for single channel lights and power injection. There's extension cables and caps available for them too.
I'm too tired to work out the current on those strips. You just need to make sure that each channel has enough enough and also that the cabling is heavy enough.
The 27 channel board is only rated at 15A but can be modded pretty easy to get more out of it.
 

fasteddy

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just remember any orders including the cost of shipping over $1000 Australian will incure GST and fees
 

BundyRoy

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Fasteddy said:
just remember any orders including the cost of shipping over $1000 Australian will incure GST and fees

Thanks Eddy. I was wondering if the postage cost was included in the $1000 limit. What about if you order two parcels from the one supplier within a 12 month period. If the second lot puts you over the $1000 do you have to pay duties or is it on a parcel by parcel basis.
 

fasteddy

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BundyRoy said:
Fasteddy said:
just remember any orders including the cost of shipping over $1000 Australian will incure GST and fees

Thanks Eddy. I was wondering if the postage cost was included in the $1000 limit. What about if you order two parcels from the one supplier within a 12 month period. If the second lot puts you over the $1000 do you have to pay duties or is it on a parcel by parcel basis.

They can still sting you if you have 2 seperate orders from the same supplier that come in around the same time. So i always wait until the first shipment has been sent before making the second order, that way you have a sufficient break between orders. But if you do this too many times then it will end up being flagged.
 

Pircy

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I thought that might be the case also. I aim to buy things as I go to a degree. I have decided to buy smart RGB strip for my gutter and windows as it is a bit cheaper than I thought but will give me flexability moving forward. I can really only afford to spend about $700 on this first order so it is well under the thousand mentioned, but for the time being if I buy a few power supplies, rgb strip, a number of boards and some pig tails it should come in within my current budget.

On the issue of controllers, many buy Rays 27 ch board as it is economical. I like the idea of the 27ch controller at the moment as it has the potential to run an arch each (21 individual sections) or my 21 christmas tree frames on the front fence. Are there any other controllers that I should be considering?
 
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