Our One Time Opportunity
Our plumbing messed up and flooded the house last year on the only day we had all our Christmas hardware laid out on the floor in the next room. Initially the insurance company classified our 16 channel LOR and D-Light controllers (13 of them) as timers and offered us $3.25 each for a total of $42.25. It wasn't any better for the lights, fixtures, strobes, etc. In an agonizingly slow process we were able to help them better understand what we had lost and thankfully we now have a budget of approximately $4000 to begin from scratch. So we have been scouring forums, websites, suppliers, manufacturers, and everywhere we can think of and the response has been inspiring and humbling. Understandably though, everyone has their own unique perspective and preference and that translates into confusing and contradictory advice which has left us not much better off than when we began and my poor wife and I are still somewhat lost. I have personally read many, many, many tutorials trying to get ahead in the learning process, but until we figure out what we will be working with I now realize I could be wasting valuable time.
Why We're Here
The one near unanimous recommendation from the great people who have offered advice was that X Lights would not only help us better in the immediate future as we start all over, but long-term as well. I want to say that no one said LOR was bad for our health or we might grow horns and a tail if we continued to use them, just a tangible majority said we should switch to X Lights and RGB/Pixels while we have this one-time chance to do so. After that, as explained earlier, just about everything else has been a confusing well-intentioned mixture similar to "this," "not that", "never", and "always"..... and nothing resembling a clear consensus. To help battle the anxiety, we've repeatedly been told we probably have just enough budget for our small home. However, I am on disability (after fighting it for several years) and it is absolutely mandatory for me personally to respect the fact we will only get this one chance to rebuild. I'm also too old, fat, bald, gray, ugly, and lazy to return to the workforce anywhere near my former earnings potential. This means I cannot responsibly justify spending any more money than we get from the insurance claim. If necessary, we may be able to raise a little more money by selling the remaining wireframes we have.
Our Intent
Our show has always been our ministry designed around a manger scene in center, a star of Bethlehem overhead, and an 8 foot tall, 9 foot wide angel wireframe I designed and built to "watch over" Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the stable. We will re-light the nativity and a few other wireframes with LED strings (unless we are fortunate enough to afford to change those lights with pixels too) so we will need to replace a few of the destroyed controllers for that. I hope to build a powder coat oven with some of the materials the insurance company would have otherwise thrown away (ceramic tile, for example) to recoat our wireframes and will be happy to offer that service to the Christmas light community at our cost. Being disabled means I can't make profit anyway, so this way we can give back to all the great people who have helped us. The unbelievably unselfish giving of other people's time trying to help plus having seen videos of Sean's home (I think) have renewed our faith and we are beyond excited at the possibilities.
The plea of Desperation:
Can someone/anyone help us sort through the confusion so we can get what we really need before the insurance company changes their mind? I know I will need and am prepared to learn the entirety of RGB, pixels, DMX, new protocols, and new hardware, etc... in a short window of time but I am blessed with more free time than I want, 40 years experience with midi-style programming, 10 years of LOR experience, and an aptitude that has always risen to meet our needs. I will attach photos and drawings, and here is what we think we need:
- start with X-Lights. Is there some advanced version we should be aware of or adjunct software we may need?
we will eliminate all our wireframes except the nativity (6 channels), the angel overlooking the manger (1200 mini LEDs divided into 5 channels), and probably two of the angels, one channel each unless we change it RGB/pixels totaling 75 feet to outline our yard
RGB/pixels totaling 115 feet to outline our house
RGB/pixels totaling 50 feet to outline the garage doors
RGB/pixels totaling 104 feet for the interior outline of the home
RGB/pixels totaling 100 feet to outline the windows
Our wish list includes:
- Replacing the windows with a 17 feet wide matrix attached to the mid-roof line in front of the windows on the left facing our home
adding a second matrix of undetermined size either in front of the garage, the right side windows, or attached to the lower roofline beneath the other matrix
a pixel tree of 12 x 25 pixels attached to the left side of the home at the 19 foot corner
I am not certain where to place power supply. Because we have a relatively small total area, I have been told I can get one big fat 4 billion amp/watt power supply and I have been told every other nodule needs its own dedicated source (I admit to a little exaggeration, there)
I am VERY confused regarding the appropriate hardware and controllers. How many and what type of controllers for the RGB pixels? Pixcon? LOR? E1.31? Wireless? Strict DMX protocol and pixels? Something else entirely?
Where should I go to get the pixels? Some China outlets have been recommended and have very good reviews
but other folks have said stay away. Is it correct to believe 12V will serve us better if we prefer to run longer lengths to lower the total number of power supplys? What am I completely missing?
Please forgive the long rant. I assure you we sincerely only want to avoid unforced errors and since we have to get it right the first time, we appreciate the availability of all the great talent and experience here. We recognize how unlikely it is for us to be able to do all of this, but I am willing to invest whatever time necessary to do as much of this as possible and will begin putting it together immediately once we are comfortable we have the right stuff. Tomorrow I will begin trying to input as much data as I can in X-Lights so I can start my trial and error learning curve. I have no idea if I have formatted all this stuff coherently, but thank you for just reading and if you can help I promise to help my son become very wealthy adopt us all some day.
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