Help new guy with first light display

[TomH]

Hi all, so I guess this is where I should post my thought for a Christmas display and get some help with what I will need to implement. I know there is not much time left to do this, so I'm really undecided about whether or not I can get this done in time. So please don't spend a lot of time on details, really just kinda looking for ballpark estimates on time and expense and see if I am understanding this stuff at all.


I have a row of 12 6ft alberta spruce that border the front edge of my yard, I would like these to be able to be controlled individually, so that they can chase back and forth, turn on and off as a group, or in smaller groups of say 3 or 4. I'm guessing that these would take one channel for each spruce, or 12 channels of the 16 available on the Lynx express?

I would want to make a large, say maybe 20ft tall cone shaped christmas tree, it would probably need at least 8 "legs", or strings of lights to it with some kind of light or decoration at the top. I would want it to be able to have individual legs chase, turn on and off as a group or in smaller groups. It would work pretty much the same as the trees above, but instead of controlling the individual tree it would control one "leg" of the big tree. I guess that would take 8 more channel'S.  so I'm up to 20 channels allready? Would be really cool if I could have the tree be sometimes blue, sometimes white, sometimes multicolored. But that would take 3 strands of lights for each leg and use 3 channels for each leg? For a total of 24 channels just for the tree. Is that correct?   

On the front of my house would be pretty simple, just 3 or 4 strands of icicle lights of different colors, maybe a couple colored light cans for background.


So i guess I need one dongle, and at least 2 lynx express dimmers? Don't need any SSr's cause they're built into the lynx express?

Anyway don't know if I'm asking too much or not, so excuse me if I did. I just joined today and I see that I need to decide quickly if I can do this or not as I saw that there is very little time left to get in on the Lynx express coop.

Thanks for your help and patience.

Tom

ps accidentally started this message as a "new poll" I don't think it went through, but if it did please ignore.

[WWNF911]

Yes Tom very short on time but not impossible. 0You can save money on a CoOp however, if you want to do it this year, you can just order parts yourself from Mouser. Sounds like a great plan. Good luck. 

Leon

[rrowan]

HI Tom,

Welcome to DLA

The 6 foot trees:
How many lights do you plan to use on them and what type (mini-lights, C7, C9, Leds)
If Leds then one channel per tree should be fine
Normally we suggest only 300 mini-lights per channel (don't want too many amps per channel)
C7s or C9s I would doubt one channel per a tree will make it.

Just my 2 cents.

Have fun

Rick R.

[PJNMCT]

Tom,

I think you have a pretty good grasp on what will be required.

You need to think about power/extension cords as well. So you should try to geographically group your display. Try to get the most bang from each controller. From what you have said, I would think one LE (lynx express) at the spruce trees - depending on their distance apart, and then two more LEs (24 of 32 channels) for the 20 ft (megatree - do a google search on how to build one) for a total of 3 LEs.  You might use a few channels for the light/star on top. Yes the SSRs are built into the LE.

If you want to control the icycles and light cans you would need more channels for that area. Possibly another LE or some 4 channel (SSR4 w/DMX) controllers.

Think of a centralized system vs. a de-centralized system. If your lights are tightly grouped then you can use higher channel count controllers. If everything is spread out, you may want to use more of the lower channel count controllers.

I would suggest making everything wireless that way you don't need to run cat5 cable to each of the controllers.

With this scenario, you would need 3 (or 4) LEs, maybe 2 or 3 SSR4s, a dongle, a wireless transmitter and 3 to 6 wireless receivers (built onto the controllers). You will need cases for each controller.

Don't forget audio - you may want an FM transmitter for this.

I think this is very doable !! One way to do it is put up the lights, connect them to power for a static display, then build the controllers and plug them in as you go. Really you should be able to complete it all the way.

The rest of the time will be devoted to sequencing -- and that can take as long as you want it to take - even up to 5 years depending on your "precision minded behavior"  

-Paul

[ThaiWay]

Tom, it helped me tremendously to put down on paper exactly what I wanted to do "in a perfect world."  In fact I still refer to that diagram from November '08, and I'm still trying to make it a reality. 

I think the timing of the LE coop is a critical factor for you... it's gonna be tight, but doable, especially if you have everything else ready to plug and play - including sequencing - when you get those LE's and Dongle built. 

...depending on your "precision minded behavior"   

Is that a euphemism for "anal?"   Gawd I wish I didn't suffer from this so!

Good luck, and have fun
John

[tbone321]

Tom,

While I agree with most of what Paul said, I really don't think that it is overly realistic to get a fully functional display up and running this year if you are just starting now.  One area where you may have trouble is getting the controllers this late in the year.  While there is a coop comming for the express, that is only one of many things that you will need.  You will also need a dongle to communicate with the controller(s) and the software needed to set up the sequences.  If you intend to use music as most do, then there is a whole new learning curve as far as sequencing and how you intend for others to hear it.  I am also new to this and have made the decision not to automate this year but I am ordering parts and reading and learning from others in here for next years display.

My plan for this year as said above is to learn and aquire the base components needed to automate my lights.  This would include a dongle, and at least one controller to run practice sequences with.  I am configuring my grand plan of what I ultimately want to do and will then break it down into something that I can do over the next few years.  By next year I would like to set up my Nativity and the lights on my house and the tree's in the front yard.  The following year I would like to add about 8 leaping arches as well as control the lights in my inflatables and the following year a large mega-tree that will suck up aroung 32 channels by itself. From there, who knows but that is what makes the hobby fun and interesting.   In order to do this I will spend the rest of this year planning out what lights I will use to determine my electrical requirements so that I purchace and build the correct controllers for what I want for now and into the short term future.  I will also spend some time deciding what software I will use to sequence the lighting and once I decide, spend a lot more time practicing and experimenting ith it to fully understand the features that it has to create the sequences and how to schedule them.  This alone would probably take me well past the typical deadline for putting up the display and that is without the time consumption of building controllers and decorations that would use them. 

If you think that you can do it in this short of time, good luck and have fun.

Tom

[magic8192]

HI Tom,

Welcome to DLA

The 6 foot trees:
How many lights do you plan to use on them and what type (mini-lights, C7, C9, Leds)
If Leds then one channel per tree should be fine
Normally we suggest only 300 mini-lights per channel (don't want too many amps per channel)
C7s or C9s I would doubt one channel per a tree will make it.

Just my 2 cents.

Have fun

Rick R.

I am planning to run 12 strings per channel for my trees 

[wbuehler]

I will have 24 per tree for two tress and 30 on number 3

[TomH]

Hi All!

Never used this kind of board before, Can't figure out how to reply to individual responses. Thanks to all for your welcomes ,best wishes and input.

Leon, I'll check out mouser site that it seems everyone here uses.  and find out more about the LE coop soon as I'm sure that it will work for me. Thanks

Rick R, I will be using mini lights for the entire project, wanted to use low watt  LED C-7's but way to much money for me. the spruce are small I think just one strand of 100 lights (per tree) will be plenty.

Paul, I'm still trying to decide about wireless, I need to look some more at what is required as far as the transmitter and receiver. The small trees are about 80ft from my front porch, so for sure wireless would be the best way.   "precision minded behavior" huh? what a nice way to put it. I'll have to share that one with my wife. She uses an entirely different word for it. 

John, I'll have to download Vixen and take a look at it. From your reply, regarding having the sequencing ready, does that mean you can load the songs and start sequencing without having anything hooked up? That would be really great.

Tom (tbone321) Hi sounds like a great plan you have there. I really had intended to start this project much earlier, I saw some of this stuff last year at a couple homes in my area. Jumped right on the internet and checked it out, and planned on getting right on it so I would be all set for this year.  Never happened , don't know where the time went.


I found a link to parts list for the dongle, and its certainly affordable, but I can't find one for the Lynx Express, can someone point me in the right direction? I don't have the slightest idea how much these are.

Thanks,
Have a great day all. appreciate your help!

Tom

[rrowan]

Hi Tom,

Yes you can use Vixen without any hardware. If you have a digital camera, take a picture of the area you will have lights (ie: front of the house) and then you can put that in Vixen's preview area. Draw some lights on that preview with each channel (ie: draw 12 trees, one tree per the first 12 channels) and when you run the sequence you will see  how it will look. Sounds hard but its really not. btw: I normally either set the camera for black and white or just convert it to b/w in software. We used to have a video showing this but the site the videos were on went away. Vixen can be found in the wiki here You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

As far as the parts list (BOM) for each hardware they on are on the Equipment page of the wiki You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login scroll down to whatever hardware you plan to use like the Express and find under the picture the BOM and Mouser Direct link - you can click that link (mouser direct) and it will show you what the cost is per Express. Of course the price is WAY better from the Coop including the pcb.

Hope that helps

Rick R.

[prattdady08]

And dont forget that when you get in on the Express coop the PIC is programmed and it comes with the heatsink kit all in one package. If you order it all seperatly then you have to buy the pcb, heatsink kit, and then get your PIC then send it to someone to program it for you and then they send it back.  The coop is a much better choice if you can get in on it! if you are going to go with cat5 then you might want to look into getting a splitter, depending on your setup it can save you alot of cat5 cable and clean up the mess of wires in your yard as well. Good luck and happy blinking!!!

-Brandon