Repeat a show on specific date each year

[GomeRyan]

I'm very new to this. I have a bunch of RGB strip lights and an CMB16D-QC controller. I'm not looking to have really fancy shows. I really just want the lights to be a solid color or slowly fade between a few colors and then repeat. But I do want the shows to run on specific dates without much input from me. For example, every December, I want the lights to go from red to green to white all night. On St. Patrick's Day, I want them to just be green. It appears that I can schedule specific dates with the Schedule Editor, but not repeating each year. And I'd like to get my controller disconnected from my computer. So, my questions are:

1. Does the G3-MP3 Director have an internal calendar, as well as an internal clock? If I pick specific days of the year from the scheduler, then save it all to the SD Card, will the G3-MP3 Director recognize the specific dates?

2. If not, and I have to keep it tethered to my computer, how far in to the future does the scheduler go? Could I select every 4th of July for the next 5-10 years?

3. Is there a better way to do what I'm trying to do?

Edited May 2, 2017 by GomeRyan

[Don]

The directors do not have internal calendars. They only know day of the week and the time.

If you left it connected to the computer you could schedule the show for years out. I suspect you'd want to change things up from time to time anyway.

[k6ccc]

I run specific shows on the minor holidays as you plan to.  I have never used any director so I can't answer that part, but rather I run my show from a computer.  Using the Show Editor, you can schedule years in advance, but there is no way that I can see to allow a repeating calendar based schedule.  Other than Halloween and Christmas, I have the following planned minor holidays - Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Light Up Blue for Autism Day, Police memorial week, and 4th of July week.  Additionally I have lit up in the national colors of several countries that suffered major enough terrorists attacks that our President ordered our flags to half staff (Belgium, and France last year).  I also lit up dark blue after the Police officers were killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge last year.  There are usually at least some small changes in the landscape lighting from one year to the next, so there would be little point in scheduling a show three years in advance since things would change by then anyway.

BTW, you might want to check out my web page that shows my year round landscape lighting:  http://www.newburghlights.org/Landscaping.html

Note that as I type this, my DSL is working VERY poorly, so it's rather slow.  Frontier is supposed to come out tomorrow to fix it...

 

 

[GomeRyan]

Thank you for the input. It sounds like it will make the most sense to keep it connected to my computer. I can set the repeating shows by date and then make adjustments as needed. You guys saved me another couple hundred dollars! I appreciate it.

[k6ccc]

Keep in mind that for a show player PC, almost any old and slow computer can be used. I've been running an about 5,000 channel show on an ancient XP desktop for years. That way you are not tying up your "good" computer. You can also set it up to boot shortly before show time and shut down after the show is over if you don't want to waste the electricity. Since I've been doing this kind of stuff for years, I can answer most questions about it.
Note BTW, the link I posted yesterday is dead as I type this because Frontier is fixing (I hope) my DSL right now... Should be up soon - I hope....


Sent from my phone using Tapatalk, so blame any typos on Android!