Ray Wu strings - cable colour

[jakew009]

Has anyone come up with a solution to the multicoloured ribbon cables the Ray Wu strings come on?

Maybe I am over thinking it but can't help but think having black cables on teh smart strings would look better than the multi coloured ribbon cable that they currently use.

I know it would require a bit more thought when hooking them up, but surely not impossible to deal with.

Or do the colour of the cables make no difference when on a mega tree for instance?

[jeffcoast]

At night I doubt it will be noticeable. But you could get some spray paint, and tape over the nodes themselves. I have thought about painting them the same color as my house to have them blend in. But will probably just leave them as they are.

[jnealand]

At night during a show I think you could have white wire and no one would notice.  We are our own worst critics / skeptics.  In reality, the viewers never notice the little errors in sequencing or occasional glitch, nor do they care.  The viewers just smile and go away happy which is all we really need.  So enjoy the show and don't overthink it.  As your show gets bigger and bigger you will begin to appreciate every little thing that makes putting it all together easier whether that is hardware or software.

[MrChristmas2000]

Once I went to great lengths to paint orange extension cords black, avoided white wire altogether etc. At night the three colors on the ribbon cable basically dissappear into the night. It might be seen during the day, but even then only if someone comes up close to the element.

IMHO It should be the least of your concerns.

[jakew009]

At night during a show I think you could have white wire and no one would notice.  We are our own worst critics / skeptics.  In reality, the viewers never notice the little errors in sequencing or occasional glitch, nor do they care.  The viewers just smile and go away happy which is all we really need.  So enjoy the show and don't overthink it.  As your show gets bigger and bigger you will begin to appreciate every little thing that makes putting it all together easier whether that is hardware or software.

I know what you mean.

My situation is a little different perhaps. For 2012 I will be starting from a completely 100% clean slate.

I am maybe straying away from the traditional christmas lights, and doing instead a christmas lightshow.

At the moment I am planning 100% RGB pixel strings, a couple of large mega trees, and lots of mini trees, the building outline and perhaps a few reindeer. I have visions of being able to scroll 'Merrry Christmas' across 3 megatrees at the front

It will be interesting to see what happens hardware wise in the next 12 months. If you are starting from scratch, and bearing in mind we in the UK do not have access to the cheap light sales you do across the pond, I do not think there is much difference in the cost between RGB pixels and controller and normal LED strings + controller.

But I guess I can stop worryign about the wire colour. Though I would prefer it if they were nice black twisted rubber cable!

[dmoore]

At the moment I am planning 100% RGB pixel strings, a couple of large mega trees, and lots of mini trees, the building outline and perhaps a few reindeer. I have visions of being able to scroll 'Merrry Christmas' across 3 megatrees at the front

Just a word of caution from someone that had 3,800 channels and 80% RGB/pixels last year.  What I found was that since you generally have less pixel/RGB counts than you would have with standard LED's and incandescents (unless you have a huge budget), you end up loosing "dynamic range".  So the display, while highly controlled, lost some of its "wow" factor.  The bigger factor is the ability to "highly sequence" so many channels - I had a fair number of comments that my prior display (160 channels, 120 amps - all incandescent) was more "entergetic" than my pixel based display.  Of course that is mainly how much time you want to spend sequencing. Just my 2 cents.

[jnealand]

I agree with dmoore.