LOR History

[Guest guest]

I am just curious; I thought there might be a little history on the official LOR site, but didn't see anything. How did LOR start? Was it basically a hobby and as people saw it they wanted to be able to do the same thing? Was it possibly a school project that just sort of took off? How long has LOR been around? "Enquiring minds want to know!"

Denny

[Guest guest]

I've thought about this many times. I too would like to know about Dan and LOR!

[Guest guest]

LOR started I do believe around the time Dasher (Drew) became part of Animated Lighting. Dan set out to develop an affordable controller for the hobbyist. It debuted at PLUS2003 and the rest is history. I think that is close to the truth from what I can recall.

[Guest guest]

I know the Carson display gave LOR a big boost and CHANGED HISTORY so to speak.

Michael B

[Guest guest]

I can tell you what I know and Dan can correct anything I mess up. LOR started officially in 2003 right about the time of the first PLUS. Going into that year Dan built his own boards to control his display. Drew Hickman owned Christmas Cave at the time which was the only place you could get preassembled boards. That spring Drew sold Christmas Cave to Animated Lighting and joined up with them. Prior to PLUS 2003 a lot of the old dogs on here and I will pick on Tim Fischer :] said that there was no way they would pay someone to put together boards they could do themselves. Then PLUS 2003 happened in Franklin and the world completely changed as we all saw, a lot of us for the first time in person, computer control equipment that we could afford. Both AL and LOR amazed all of us in attendence. Prior to PLUS 2003, a certain steering committee member who shall remain anomyous thought that the majority of people that would be coming to PLUS already had computer control (I disagreed) and was proven correct when less than 30% of the people said they used computer control. Now by Christmas 2003, those same 125 +/- people probably were somewhere closer to 50 or even 60% then using computer control.

Hope that helps.

Jeff

[Guest guest]

Dan can, of course, fill in the whole story. But here's a few nuggets to start with:

• 
  
• LOR was first demonstrated at PLUS 2003, and shipped a few months later. I'm proud to say I was one of the first orders to be placed.
  
• Before starting LOR, Dan was just a 'regular PC guy' with an incredible display. If you haven't seen Dan's display, check out http://www.TL2000.com. It's known for Dan's very cool display construction techniques (Turning his actual house into a gingerbread house, an oversized "Whirlygig" display, cool Nativity, Chime-O-Matic, etc. Dan was using his own software under Linux and DIO boards before creating LOR.
  
• At some point circa 2002-2003 Dan decided that he could provide a value-conscious controller and software system to the display enthusiast by creating his own software, hardware, and system. At the time, dimmable controllers were sort of the "holy grail" as current systems (mostly homebrew) didn't allow for dimming, but only on and off control.
  
• The rest, as they say, is history!

2003 was a very interesting year for display enthusiasts. That year saw the introduction of two completely new and similar-yet-different product lines: LOR and Animated Lighting. Both were demonstrated at PLUS 2003, and many, like myself, chose that path to take by talking with both vendors at that event (at the time, I was still heavlly considering rolling my own system as well, but opted not to after seeing LOR). Both of these products essentially replaced the only prior commercial product aimed at display enthusiasts, "Dasher", which was developed by former PC regular and current AL employee Drew Hickman.

Before Dasher, folks like Chuck Smith were rolling their own systems from scratch. So while many consider LOR and computerized displays to be a "new thing", it really goes back at least 10 years.

-Tim

Edit: I was typing this at the same time several of the above replies were made, so I guess it's a bit of duplication now.

[Guest guest]

I started using computer control back when Dasher was coming out. I took a display to the Chicago Mini that showed the old Dasher boards, and traced the history up to the new LOR boards. I started out using Dasher P (parallel), and was using the kits and making my own serial boards using Dasher S. There was even an SACB chip that did standalone. Of course this was all on/off only. In fact I still use over 200 channels of homemade Dasher boards, and thankfully Dan supports the protocol in the LOR software. As others have said, when dimming came out the playing field changed dramatically. I still remember way back when (actually just a couple of years ago) that dimming was just a dream, that seemed far far away.

[Guest guest]

CUTTHEMUSIC wrote:

I've thought about this many times. I too would like to know about Dan and LOR!

Hum, "like to know about Dan and...." Well I was going to answer this and was composing the response in MS Word.... The MS Word program had a runtime error and when I open the recovery file it just dies again. So I am just going to go with what people have said above. It is pretty accurate. They didn't start on the day of my birth. My post was going to start with my birth and slowly move on to today.

[Guest guest]

LightORama wrote:

They didn't start on the day of my birth. My post was going to start with my birth and slowly move on to today.

Now that would have taken some time and computer resources Dan. I can see how that would have locked things up!


:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Greg

PS Since I am older, I can get away with posting that!

But don't you young'ins get any ideas!

[Guest guest]

Michael B wrote:

I know the Carson display gave LOR a big boost and CHANGED HISTORY so to speak.

Yes, the popularity of Carson Williams' sequence did give LOR and all of Computerized Christmas Lighting a shot in the arm. LOR grew faster last year than I expected. I very much appreciate that Carson mentioned LOR as often as he did. He didn't have to do that and it was very nice of him to do so.

Besides myself, the person most responsible for the existence of LOR is Chuck Smith. Without him there would be no Planet Christmas, I would not have met and chatted with the early pioneers in Computerized Displays and there would not be a LOR. Planet Christmas brought together a group of folks that were using anything they could to make their Christmas displays "different". Many folks including Chuck were using DIO cards and SSRs to control their shows (that is how I started as well).

I was happy with my customized linux software and DIO/SSR setup but I always wanted more. I wanted to have dimming and fading. One year I actually purchased a used 100 pound, motorized variac that I could control by the PC and smoothly dim and fade about 100 amps but that in essence dimmed all channels at once and was an unacceptable compromise. It was at this point that I decided to create what became LOR.

I saw that Planet Christmas had a number of people that wanted to put computer control in their displays. I knew how much fun it was for me and how addictive it was and I felt that this could become a business. I wanted two things. Number one make it easy to sequence and second, get rid of the DIO cards and move to a daisy chained serial system that had dimming.

This was in early 2002. At this time LOR was just me and I also had a full time job as an executive at a software company (Digital Arts, Inc.).

I have an electronics and computer science background and had been a programmer for many years prior to moving into management positions. During 2002 I designed the hardware and firmware that would go into the controllers. I designed the software and prototyped everything to prove that it would all work. I built a simple interface on the PC to create grids and worked out how to get music/light sync.

After Christmas of 2002 I started to get more people involved in the development of the software. I had some good programmers working with me at my job and a few of them started working on LOR. Although I designed the user interface I did not code it. Bob build the Sequence Editor and Tor build some of the other programs. I wrote the Hardware Utility and the underlying communications code used by all the programs.

I decided that I would introduce LOR to the world at PLUS2003. At some point here, Animated Lighting popped into existence. That really caught me by surprise. I had already invested tons of time and money so I just kept going and figured there is room for more than one of us. During this time, the company I worked for, Digital Arts, Inc. was simply great. I was spending less and less time working on their stuff and started doing LOR work all the time. They knew what was going on but they just kept paying me.

So Plus 2003 happend... Two days before plus we re-wired some of the light trees from my personal display to work with LOR controllers. We packed our stuff into a U-Haul trailer and headed for Tennessee. We had some posters printed, some fliers made and business cards. Hours before we left, the PC that had "everything" on it crashed. The guys at Digital Arts worked like crazy for hours and recovered everything perfectly!!! ( we are now backed up in a "million" places ). All of the LOR cards that were on display were hand soldered by me. Everything worked perfectly and we had a pretty nice showing.

Later in 2003 we had our controller cards manufactured by a excellent ISO9002 certified assembly house and we started selling controllers..... I bent metal in my garage to make parts for LOR1602Ws and they were assembled on the kitchen table that first year.

For the 2004 season we moved to a real shop and manufactured the controllers there. Lots of room and lots of work tables for people. We had a number of part-time people working on building controllers and we grew by leaps and bounds. We had a large number of residential customers and we had a lot of commercial orders. Even places like Disney World used our controllers in 2004.

For 2005 a few things happened. First about midway through the year I sold a share of the company and gained a partner John. At PLUS2005 we had a very nice booth and introduced some new technology including the MP3-Director card. That director was used in the 2005 season by a limited set of customers and was a great success. In 2005 we also introduced the Easy Light Linkers. They were used by a few residential customers and a larger commercial customer ( Let There Be Lights, Inc. ) who used over 60 Easy Light Linkers for a large park display in Florida.

And in 2005 Carson Williams hit the Internet. We already had more business than expected for 2005 and were just about sold out before Carson hit and he generated a bunch more.

In 2006 we had the April sale in May. To prepare for it we moved into a larger building and ordered lots of stuff. We had planned to move to a larger building mid year but ended up accelerating our plans. We had a great sale and we are still shipping SAVE10 orders for that sale.

We now have two suppliers producing controllers and a third supplier is planned to start early next year. We have sheet metal shops in Utah and Connecticut producing heatsinks and other parts for the controllers. PCBs are produced in Colorado. PCB assembly is done in California. Heatsinks are installed by a company in Connecticut and Final assembly, programming, testing, packaging and shipping are done by LOR in Upstate New York. We have a number of full time employees, I am full time, and a number of part time employees.

We have many plans for the future. Our product line will continue to grow. We did bog down a little this year as we expanded the business we lost a bit of momentum on new product development. We are making corrections so that we can grow up and out at the same time.

--------

Now someone asked about the history of DAN and LOR.... Well that was LOR history. Here is the history of Dan:

Born 11 Jan 54 in my grandparents bedroom. My grandma still sleeps in the same room and in the same bed!; 6 Dec 75 - Married Mary; 25 April 00 - adopted Alex;

[Guest guest]

Great Story Dan. And great company. Prior to buying my system, one of the things that I couldn't get over was how many people praised you for always being right there when assistance was needed. After I purchased the system, I was telling (bragging, whatever!) to the guys in my carpool about it. One of them, who's always a pessimist, asked about the warranty. To be honest, I never even thought about it. Word of mouth sold me on the system.

Even my wife was a little concerned. She's a huge Christmas decorating fan, but thought I was going a little overboard getting this. After I showed her the sequences I made, I think she's getting excited. By October, she'll be glad I spent the money (I will use the system for our Halloween display also).

Since I got it in, I've been chugging along, creating my musical sequences. I don't have anywhere near the knowledge about heat sinks and soldering and all them other electrical tech terms, but I do know enough about amps not to blow the thing up! But this board has been great in giving me plenty of help in figuring out what to do!

Best of luck in growing the company. Definitely sounds like a success story to me!

[Guest guest]

Wow that is a cool story Dan. I think I will print that one out for some inspiration. Really cool how you had a dream and you made it happen, and not only happen but have grown so much like your have. I pray God just continues to bless your business.

[Guest guest]

Dan,

Thanks for sharing your amazing story. You had a vision and saw it through. Your customer service and attention to the "little things" has made you and your family a success. The road ahead of you is wide open with many avenues. It will be interesting to see which one you and LOR takes.

May you find continued success on your journey.

Michael B

P.S.

My first two children are adopted, too. Adoption is a wonderful option when life throws up it's "bump in the road"!

[Guest guest]

Thanks for sharing your story. I think I can speak for all of here and say we've so happy and proud that LOR has taken off. Just goes to show that good things happen to good, hardworking people.

[Guest guest]

Michael B wrote:

I know the Carson display gave LOR a big boost and CHANGED HISTORY so to speak.

Michael B

I agree. I starting using LOR because of that video as well. When I ordered a 16 channel one to try out last year, it was back order.

[Guest guest]

LightORama wrote:

25 April 00 - adopted Alex;

I just got my 16 channel DIY kits today. While assembling the board, I just noticed "ALEX" is in the upper-left hand corner of the board. For a split second I thought "Now why would Alex be printed on the board?". Then I remembered reading about your son Alex

[Guest guest]

LightORama wrote:

I also had a full time job as an executive at a software company (Digital Arts, Inc.).

I had already invested tons of time and money so I just kept going and figured there is room for more than one of us.

I was spending less and less time working on their stuff and started doing LOR work all the time. They knew what was going on but they just kept paying me.


Born 11 Jan 54 in my grandparents bedroom. My grandma still sleeps in the same room and in the same bed!; 6 Dec 75 - Married Mary; 25 April 00 - adopted Alex;

Dan,

I can relate with the full time job and the side business thing (my amusement ride). Countless hours and money spent. I can only hope to achieve at least half of what you & Mary have achieved. Great story and great job.

And you mentioned 3 very important dates, 1) you were born so you could provide us your great talent thru your LOR products. 2) You shared your love to a woman that believes in your dream and in return, I'm sure she has a great glow inside her to be a big part of what LOR has done and to be a direct connection to what a lot of folks light shows are today (simply amazing). And 3) You both get to share your combined love and support for each other to a young child and bring that child into the world as a family, as a whole.

Money can buy an animated light show, but money can't buy your path of life for which you discribed. Excellent job!!!



Tom

[Guest guest]

THANK YOU for sharing than, Dan. As a PC/electronics-challenged noob you have opened a door I couldn't have otherwise walked through. And though I make a living with words (advertising), there is no way I can sufficiently express my gratitude to you, the pioneers you mentioned, and the amazing giving spirit of some of the more experienced guys here who will do anything they can to help guys like me. It's truly overwhelming.

What you have is a truly unique situation where your customer base is also your biggest fans. And I guarantee that every time we hear good reports, there's high-fives all around and we're grinning from ear to ear that one of our own is receiving the reward he so richly deserves.

LOR is an AMAZING experience!

[Guest guest]

Jeff_Womack wrote:

I can tell you what I know and Dan can correct anything I mess up. LOR started officially in 2003 right about the time of the first PLUS. Going into that year Dan built his own boards to control his display. Drew Hickman owned Christmas Cave at the time which was the only place you could get preassembled boards. That spring Drew sold Christmas Cave to Animated Lighting and joined up with them. Prior to PLUS 2003 a lot of the old dogs on here and I will pick on Tim Fischer :] said that there was no way they would pay someone to put together boards they could do themselves. Then PLUS 2003 happened in Franklin and the world

I do believe Drew was involved with Animated Lighting some time well before the announced sale. I remember Drew had a period between 2000-2002 where he was intensely looking into dimming, servo control, DMX control, etc but public sales or developments thru Chrstmas Cave was non-existent. Meanwhile I remember conversing with the man talking about Mosfits, the language the servos and radio controlled items operate on for positioning data and hearing of all the progress made. Then all of a sudden here is the announcement that AL bought Christmas Cave which happened to be in the same city Drew Lives in and all these things Drew had been working on for 2 or 3 years were suddenly available and along with that, Animation Director looked suspiciously just like Dasher and even Animation Director's version number available happened to be the very next in line that Dasher would have used!

Dan you shouldnt have been suprised by Animated Lighting. It was the natural progression of Drew's Dasher that was already a long standing leader in the field and from 2001 and 2002 Drew kept publically talking about the next big version of Dasher that would operate dimming, DMX, Servos, etc. The biggest problem was the lame story that Animated Lighting bought out Christmas Cave, its more like Christmas Cave "became" Animated Lighting.

Drew is a pretty smart man at seeing a vision and putting into place, found an investor to build a company with, but they dropped the ball especially at first public perception and marketing, and become more interested in larger commercial sized customers. Drew was loved by many now LOR users, but the task he took on at hand was perhaps more then he could bare and be same great guy personally solving everyones problems one by one like he had in the old Dasher days.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the history of AL at least as you see it. Now back to the thread.....LOR history.

Jeff