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Wait for new G3 controllers or buy the G2 that are on sale?


Wayne

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DonFL wrote:

It would appear there will still be kits, but being that the G3 design incorporates surface mount components, they will be partial kits..so a little pricier, but would make sense still a savings from fully assembled.

The kits as we know them now, will be a thing of the past.

At least, thats how I'm reading it these days.






Don, thats not how I read it.. from Dan's email you posted..

Hello, Very few people purchased the CTB16K kits and we have been planning on dropping them for a year or two.

We are selling the PC solder kits and most likely will continue to sell them

but about the Next Gen "kit":

but it may be a while before the new G3 version PC solder kit is available.

PC kits are available today if you need them. PC assembled cards (the current gen) will be available in about one week.

Best regards,
Dan Light O Rama, Inc.

So for those still wanting to save $$, Dan will still sell the -16PC kits, until he doesnt..


Sorry abt the colors, sometimes I just cant stop myself ;)
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Sorry If I missed this somewhere but...Can Gen2 and Gen3 co-exist on the same network? Will that limit some/all of the capabilities of Gen3 (if you have some Gen2 mixed in)? What Ive been waiting for since June is to buy 2 PC-CTB16PC Cards with high power heatsink. Will Gen3 be here before November? Anyone wanting to sell a few Gen2 Cards? Im gettin' nervious...:?

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TJ..Good point, my reading and comprehension skills are suffering of late...Dan's comments do seem to indicate the current PC kits will live on, for now.

You have to wonder, though, at what point do you incorporate enough changes/upgrades to the software, and so many additional features to the G3 controllers, that it makes more sense to just sunset the current line of controllers.

I think your comment her is about as accurate as it gets right now:

So for those still wanting to save $$, Dan will still sell the -16PC kits, until he doesnt..

(I added the colors for you..couldn't help myself...:P)

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DonFL wrote:

Good point, my reading and comprehension skills are suffering of late...Dan's comments do seem to indicate the current PC kits will live on, for now.

You have to wonder, though, at what point do you incorporate enough changes/upgrades to the software, and so many additional features to the G3 controllers, that it makes more sense to just sunset the current line of controllers.

I think your comment her is about as accurate as it gets right now:

So for those still wanting to save $$, Dan will still sell the -16PC kits, until he doesnt..

(I added the colors for you..couldn't help myself...:P)

I thought it was said that there would be firmware updates for the G2 controllers to bring them up to snuff with the G3s.
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I hope this isn't throwing fuel on the fire, but I went back in time and found this post which may answer a lot of questions raised in this thread. It will be interesting to see how much of this has been incorporated into the new software and controllers. (I assume that the references to Gen 2 controllers are now being referred to as Gen 3 controllers). Please note the original date of the post is last year so a lot has probably changed since this was posted.





Posted: Thu Dec 23rd, 2010 07:25 am, post # 18, http://forums.lightorama.com/forum81/25276.html



We have very big plans for next year. This year we started lots of projects (too many) and didn't finish many of them BUT the good news is that many of them are now ready to go and will certainly be available next year.

With 100% certainty, we will be expanding the Cosmic Color series to include Cosmic Color Bulbs and Cosmic Color Floods. The Cosmic Color Bulbs are individually addressable RGB bulbs and the Cosmic Color Floods are high powered RGB LED floods with high power constant current drivers. They are bright!. We spent a large amount of effort last year getting them ready and they will absolutely be sold in 2011.

A new, more powerful MP3 director has been under development months. It will have a number of new features and will be the heart of our new Plug-n-Show product that will be released next year.

We have the new Gen2 controllers being released next year. They have been going through months of testing, and are currently undergoing UL 508 certification. Gen2 will be a major step forward in firmware as well as many new features in the hardware such as, On Card Ghost Loads (which will help with LEDs), they can also optionally have real snubbers which will help in 240v countries where transformers are plugged into the controller. Other new features as well.

The new Gen2 controller code, is being written so that most of the new firmware based features can be used in our existing controllers as well. Most existing controllers will have a free firmware upgrade that will provide multiple dimming curves. which will help normalize incandescent and LED fades. The fade resolution is being changed from 256 steps to 1024 steps across the ZC. This is important because a device like a LED has such a limited dimming range, that fade step size (with only 256 steps) can be an issue. In addition there are a number of other new features and new lighting effects generated.

Everything that I have just listed I can actually touch and see operate right now, here at LOR. In some cases we already have stock of parts (such as flood heads and RGB Bulb strings) on the shelves.


To support displays with the 1000s of channels required for individually addressable RGB bulbs, we will be making major improvements to our network capabilities and providing high speed Ethernet interfaces that will provide multiple LOR/DMX networks and universes. For those who want to run their show from the PC a lower cost DMX dongle will be available.

The LOR software will be enhanced to support easier sequencing when many 1000s of channels are involved.

For the last year a new visualizer has been under construction. This visualizer will be released early next year. The visualizer allows you to create multi channel objects such as arches, trees, etc. drag them around, layer them so that one appears in front of another, etc... Supports macros, sub sequence activity, etc…

------------

We are also looking at:

A new wireless system, new controller configurations (different channel counts), and improvements in audio and video support...

We are also working an a few skunk works projects that will be released next year that I am not ready to talk until closer to the timer of their release.

A leak: One of the skunk works projects is PLC devices. (PLC=Power Line Control) High Speed PLC will eliminate the need for data cables by sending the data signal over the standard, extension cord that you were already using.

Another Leak: A 4 channel PLC controller (which can also be used with CAT5 if desired) is being tested!


Dan…





Post #84



Sorry... I missed this thread for a while.... It was a crazy end of year but I am finally catching up a bit on things not related to immediate customer support.

Here are some of the questions I missed:

Dan any idea when you may be announcing prices for the CCB, and CCF?

It will be soon. We will give an update before the end of Feb.

-------

One big question is: When will LOR have an IP interface to the controller? I am thinking more of a REST or SOAP interface that lets us tell send a command to Unit 13, channel 8, On 50%.

We do not plan to implement any new protocols to the controllers. We will remain with LOR and DMX as the supported interfaces.

-------

Dan..will the floods run on a standard DC card, or have their own controller? Kit..or only available assembled?

The floods have their own high power constant current driver. The card has 6 channels and supports 2 flood heads. They will not be in a kit. The LEDS are high power, surface mount and use a aluminum PCB and are in a sealed aluminum/glass head. Sealed cable connections, etc.. They are not going to be inexpensive floods. One of them probably has the power of 10 rainbow floods (or more).

-------

But I egress Dan and ask, is there any thing that will help those of us with the G1 boards to make our LEDs look better. Both while programming and while running a show?

Yes the Gen 2 firmware will be available for G1 controllers. It will allow you to have different dimming curves for our LEDs so that they act more like incandescents. New lighting effects such as shimmer speed, strobe effects, etc.. will be made on G1 and G2 controllers. People with G1 controller will reap all the benefits of Gen 2 firmware and software changes.

--------

Will the Cosmic Color Floods be showing up in the summer sales? Do these have an inbuilt controller like the CCR's and CCB's or do you connect to 3 DC channels on a DC board?

They will be in the summer sale. They have their own controllers. I will warn people that they are not cheap. The are high power, quality, outdoor LED RGB floods.

---------

Do you have any more information on the ghost loads and snubbers for 240 countries - can these be retrofitted to the CTB16PC or do these exist on the newer Gen2 controllers?

The Gen2 hardware changes are on card changes and can not be retro fitted onto Gen 1 controllers. As mentioned, the Gen 2 firmware will be available on G1 controllers.

--------

I wish LOR would just transition to DMX and then sticky channels and other protocol based issues become a thing of the past.

LOR controllers do support DMX today. And with the enhanced DMX support you could run your system as a DMX system and not use the LOR protocol. However one of the reasons that we did not go with DMX in the first case is that it can be a bit more challenging to get working. I spoke to lighting professionals about the pros and cons of DMX before we went the way we did.

--------

Will the ethernet interface be based on E131, allowing LOR software to be used with other E131 interfaces?

We will be using an industry standard. Most likely it will be art-net because it is the most used in the lighting industry. That is not cast in stone at this point. In any case it will be "special" because we will also support the LOR protocol as well.

--------


When you say "enchanced" to support thousands of channels.... Will this involve object oriented/transition processes like in Madrix, Prancer and LSP? Something that helps "write" the sequence for you? As someone coming out of 2010 with 2,300 channels, all this hardware (pixel nodes/cosmic bulbs) is going to be for not without some really smoking good software. Will this software be able to reference lights in a 2D or 3D space as it pertains to auto-sequencing?

We have a number of different types of users and will be making enhancements to help the little guy that is still having problems getting arches to leap and the big guy that has 10,000 channels with tons of RGB and needs things to be approached from a different perspective to function.

On a side note: there was another post where it was mentioned that it was a year between the time we introduced the CCR and then had support for RGB in the software. To those that struggled a bit the first year with the CCRs without RGB support, my apologies. We could have had RGB support that first year but it would have been a kludge and I opted to spend the time having an infrastructure built that makes adding these new feature more "natural" to the code. Also just as the displays are getting more complex the code is as well. As the code becomes more complex the more chance for bugs. So we spent a lot of time adding automated testing code to the system.

---------

Will this new communications system using power cords (PLC) work with existing controllers if they update the firmware?

No... The PLC requires special hardware that can "listen" in on the power line.

----------


Dan

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This may not be the place to ask but it does tie in. The new signal over power feature is suppose to do away with the need for the signal cable from the PC and between controllers. The command signal will ride on the power to the controllers? If that is the case, how would you control two or more houses? I have my controllers plugged in to my house current and my neighbor has a controller plugged in to their house current. I ran a cat-5e cable to that controller and the house next door became part of my display. How would I control lights next door plugged in to a seperate power source from mine with the signal over power method?

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texascop wrote:

The new signal over power feature is suppose to do away with the need for the signal cable from the PC and between controllers.

Not exactly. You will still need to run a serial cable from the PC (or an ELL that is wirelessly connected to a PC or director) to the power line "injector", which is really a "combiner". You must use a separate injector for each power plug. The signal does not travel back from the injector to the rest of the house, it only goes from the injector to the PLC controller.

The PLC controllers are meant to be small, less expensive, and low power. They are designed for LED loads only.

An example where I would like to use a signal over power controller is this: Currently I have red, green, and blue LED lights on a bush, but that bush is 30 feet away from the (CTB16PC) controller. That means 3 lengths of 30-feet extension cords.

The alternative is to put the controller closer to the bush, that would mean running a (heavier) power cable and a network cable to that bush. And I can't do that anyway because I'm using the other channels on that controller for something else.

With the PLC controller, I would put the injector near my current controller and run a single 30-foot SPT1 line to the bush, where the 4-channel PLC controller would power the red, blue, green, and white strings with no additional extension cords. I could tap this same line to put another PLC controller on another bush that is in between with no additional extension cords.
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  • 2 weeks later...

So if I am reading this correctly the new generation CTB-16PC controllers have all of the same capabilities as before with the added enhancements of the generation controllers that can listen for the controller options over the power line. All of the new features for an additional cost of $10 over the cost of the original controller. Awesome! :cool:





PC-CTB16PC-COMPLETE.jpg


This is a Third Generation (GEN3) Light-O-Rama Controller. It is designed to be used with all Christmas Lights including LEDs.



Comes as pictured above. Controller card with Heavy duty heatsinks is pre-installed in the enclosure. You assemble the strain relief, clamp the wires in place, screw the strain relief to the enclosure and plug the wires into the card. In an hour (actual time may vary) you will have a 30 amp, 16 channel light controller.

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