Author Topic: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights  (Read 2461 times)

Offline gerry

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Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« on: August 06, 2015, 08:55:42 PM »

As part of some background lights , I have a few sets of store bought LED lights .
To be connected via the DMX output of my pixel controllers using Rays 27ch controller.

The light strings are physically White LEDS and physically Blue LEDS (different strings of course) and I will mix them ie throw them over some hedges.

In xLights , I have defined each White string as a 'Single Colour White' model and I use the On or ramp effects to turn the lights on and off as required , ensuring that the Colour of the ON effect is White.

My question is , for the physically Blue LEDS , can I define these as 'Single Colour Blue' and use the Blue colour on On and ramp ? or should I define this the same as the White String (and just call the model name a "Blue" something)

Using  the Blue colour, would give me a better visual indicator on the sequencer and layout as to when the blue kicks in and when the white kicks in - that's all.



 
Gerry

Offline JonB256

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2015, 09:08:56 PM »
Yes, define them as blue so that your Preview looks like you expect.

The only drawback I find for Single Color models is that I "forget" to make it the right color and wonder why it isn't showing up. Then I eventually see the color palette and kick myself. again.

Offline Gilrock

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2015, 10:09:51 PM »
If you define them as single color blue then it will only react to the blue channel.  So you can put any color down you like and it will route the blue portion of that color to that model.

Offline gerry

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2015, 11:26:47 PM »
If you define them as single color blue then it will only react to the blue channel.  So you can put any color down you like and it will route the blue portion of that color to that model.

Hi,
I am not sure what 'react to the blue channel' means .

Am hoping that with 100 % intensity, 'ON' would mean turn the channel on (since it is dumb, I cant physically tell it anything about the colour)

As per Jon , if I set the blue colour on , having defined it as a Single Colour Blue, it would work.

But just for my knowledge , what would happen physically , if the ON effect was dropped with say a purple colour ticked and I had defined it as Single Colour Blue. Would it simply (physical lights) not turn on (because Purple <> Blue) or would it be almost 100 % on because colour wise purple is almost blue ?

Last year I cut up and used a couple of the white lights to learn (the others were my fallback) , this year am going to cut up quite a few more , but am doing the sequencing now 
Gerry

Offline Gilrock

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2015, 07:12:01 AM »
If you define them as single color blue then it will only react to the blue channel.  So you can put any color down you like and it will route the blue portion of that color to that model.

Hi,
I am not sure what 'react to the blue channel' means .

Am hoping that with 100 % intensity, 'ON' would mean turn the channel on (since it is dumb, I cant physically tell it anything about the colour)

As per Jon , if I set the blue colour on , having defined it as a Single Colour Blue, it would work.

But just for my knowledge , what would happen physically , if the ON effect was dropped with say a purple colour ticked and I had defined it as Single Colour Blue. Would it simply (physical lights) not turn on (because Purple <> Blue) or would it be almost 100 % on because colour wise purple is almost blue ?

Last year I cut up and used a couple of the white lights to learn (the others were my fallback) , this year am going to cut up quite a few more , but am doing the sequencing now

Nope that's not how it works.  The render routines have no idea what type of string you have assigned in your model.  It's like I described.  The "B" portion of the RGB color written to the model is what would show up.  If you send White to a single color blue model then it will turn fully blue.  If you send blue it will turn fully blue.  If you send red or green it won't turn on at all.  If you send pink which is R=255, G=0, B=128 you will get a half brightness blue.  It's designed that way so that you can include those single color models inside a group and they will react to the colors dropped on the group.  Any of the "blue" components of the RGB values assigned to that model will cause it to fire at the associated brightness of the component.

Offline gerry

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2015, 05:05:27 PM »
Thanks Gil . Understood .
Gerry

Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2015, 07:11:01 PM »
If you define them as single color blue then it will only react to the blue channel.  So you can put any color down you like and it will route the blue portion of that color to that model.

Hi,
I am not sure what 'react to the blue channel' means .

Am hoping that with 100 % intensity, 'ON' would mean turn the channel on (since it is dumb, I cant physically tell it anything about the colour)

As per Jon , if I set the blue colour on , having defined it as a Single Colour Blue, it would work.

But just for my knowledge , what would happen physically , if the ON effect was dropped with say a purple colour ticked and I had defined it as Single Colour Blue. Would it simply (physical lights) not turn on (because Purple <> Blue) or would it be almost 100 % on because colour wise purple is almost blue ?

Last year I cut up and used a couple of the white lights to learn (the others were my fallback) , this year am going to cut up quite a few more , but am doing the sequencing now

Nope that's not how it works.  The render routines have no idea what type of string you have assigned in your model.  It's like I described.  The "B" portion of the RGB color written to the model is what would show up.  If you send White to a single color blue model then it will turn fully blue.  If you send blue it will turn fully blue.  If you send red or green it won't turn on at all.  If you send pink which is R=255, G=0, B=128 you will get a half brightness blue.  It's designed that way so that you can include those single color models inside a group and they will react to the colors dropped on the group.  Any of the "blue" components of the RGB values assigned to that model will cause it to fire at the associated brightness of the component.
I have a bunch of mini trees using single color  led strings and controlled by lynx extresses.  Each of the 15 trees have 5 channels and the same 5 colors.

Red, green, blue, white, and purple (which looks pink :) )

What is the best way to represent these with single string definitions?

It seems that purple would never  be brought up since its not a component of RGB.

And when going for a white it would look better to use the white leds instead of mixing the red green and blue.

It seems that the lor / lsp software is better for these single color strings -- but i've left that software in the distant past.

Thoughts?
http://WinterLightShow.com  |  110K channels, 50K lights  |  Nutcracker, Falcon, DLA, HolidayCoro

Offline rando1957

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Re: Turning on Blue store bought LED lights
« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2015, 02:53:47 PM »
Steve,
I created 4 models (for you 5) of each tree - one for each color - and I used the Single Color selection (Red, Green, Blue, White) so I can see the actual colors show up.  I have not used XL to sequence them since I was happy with the way they were imported from LOR.  Oh, I then placed each color model over the other one with just a slight space difference so I could see the colors as they were lit.  Works great.
Randy McMasters
Graham, NC