Sean Meighan
General => The Water Cooler => Topic started by: zvacman on January 12, 2016, 07:49:27 PM
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I just joined the forum and want to introduce myself. I go by Zvacman. I live in Northern Michigan (snowy and cold). I am self employed, I own a vacuum store (hence the username). Last year was my 40th year putting up a substantial Christmas light display. Last year was also my first year doing an animated musical show with LOR. I had 80 channels and over 100,000 led's. The cheese has slid off my cracker, I have been planning next years show while doing this years show. I had more ideas than time, learning the software, sequencing, and building props was a full plate. This fall and early winter was unseasonably warm up here which made conditions ideal for decorating, I can't count on that for next year. I want to do a bunch of smart and dumb RGB's next year. Here is where the problem comes in, I am extremely computer challenged. Dongle, bridge, E1.31, Ethernet over blah, blah, blah. it all makes my head want to pop! Is there an RGB and Pixels for dummies book? There should be! I am going to warn you all right now, I am going to ask some really stupid questions. I apologize in advance. There it is in a nutshell, sorry for being so wordy.
Z
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Here's one site that has some good info.
http://blog.holidaycoro.com/2015/01/where-do-i-start-when-designing-new-rgb.html?m=1 (http://blog.holidaycoro.com/2015/01/where-do-i-start-when-designing-new-rgb.html?m=1)
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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One thing I would suggest, since you are starting off, I would go 100% smart. They aren't that much more than dumb and you have more options.
There are several pre-sales, now is the best time to order, can save some money.
Do you know where you are going to buy your stuff?
James
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yes, read the 101 manual at auschristmaslighting.com
http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,1889.msg17038.html#msg17038 (http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php/topic,1889.msg17038.html#msg17038)
Most of us read this first before doing pixels (and then read it again and again and again until it started making sense)
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One thing I would suggest, since you are starting off, I would go 100% smart. They aren't that much more than dumb and you have more options.
There are several pre-sales, now is the best time to order, can save some money.
Do you know where you are going to buy your stuff?
James
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I've been looking around. Do you have any suggestions?
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http://pixelsequencing.mysimplestore.com/t/pre-sale (http://pixelsequencing.mysimplestore.com/t/pre-sale)
diyledexpress.com (http://diyledexpress.com)
holidaycoro.com (http://holidaycoro.com)
And ray Wu on aliexpress.com. (I don't have a link to his store.)
James
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Welcome :)
My daughter live up there as well and I help her with hers. All dmx at this time. I agree with james that you should go all smart pixels, as you can make a smart pixel dumb ( all one color ) but you cant make a dumb pixel smart. I would also suggest that you check out falcon christmas and some of the toys they have there. They have a f16v2 buy going on till the end of the month and for the money you would be hard pressed to find a better controller with all of the features it has. It is easy to hook up and use no dongle or bridge ect, needed and it has alot of room for future additions. They have a couple of addon boards that are being tested that will make it very flexible. I am not trying to sell you on one board being better than the next guys I have several different boards an have found that the f16v2 board is by far the easiest to set up and use without having to buy additional componets to make the lights blink. This will allow you to work on your display intead of spending extra time on getting A to work with B ect. Just my 2 cents
Joe
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Welcome to Xlights/NC
I agree with t.jo13t and Phrog30 Last x-mas was my first year Sequencing. I also went all smart pixels. Only difference was I used a E682 controller. But in no time I used all 3570 channels. Its a solid board but for the same price go with the F16v2 (just over 32,000 channels) as I ordered one for next season. Only catch is they are only produced a few times a year and per order. Need to order before the end of the month and will ship March. As for your lights. Strips or bullets. Here I'm the odd one, I like strips. I feel I get a brighter display. They are fragile and can not take much movement I have the strips mounted solid on aluminum t angles for my mega trees. This year I'm getting into coro shapes/boxes. I built 2 8' candles, 12 gift boxes and now working on snowflakes. The whole point is you need to try to come up with a layout/design. once you have that then you can come up with a list of hardware. As for hooking it all together really easier than you think. Winter here in New York is also running 6 to 7 weeks late. Again Welcome.