Haven't seen anything yet about this.

[The Pest]

I am in the process of designing a home from the ground up. I am planning on putting several Outlets(controlled for show's) around my roof, I also will plan on putting multiple channels though out my landscaping including normally unused channels for Holiday shows in the middle of my yard(Ground Boxes) and was looking for a controller set up that would allow being hard wired in to the electrical system of the house. I will not only be doing holiday shows, but also for general lighting(ex. RGBW floods at foot of trees, RGBW spot around corners of house, etc)
Any information would be helpful.
I am even thinking about putting all the electrical panels and controls in a room that is climate controlled.

Thanks
The Pest
avid decorator and can't wait to get a reply Maybe from DAN.


PS I am looking at around at least 320 Channels

[ace_master]

Sounds like a great idea to me. Wish I had the time and money for something that adventurous . make sure everything is labeled clearly from the start.

[The Pest]

I am planning on it. I just don't want to have to get the kits and modify the connection's. I was looking to see if they had or might create a board ready for this type of installation.

[DownTown]

The Pest wrote:

I am in the process of designing a home from the ground up. I am planning on putting several Outlets(controlled for show's) around my roof, I also will plan on putting multiple channels though out my landscaping including normally unused channels for Holiday shows in the middle of my yard(Ground Boxes) and was looking for a controller set up that would allow being hard wired in to the electrical system of the house. I will not only be doing holiday shows, but also for general lighting(ex. RGBW floods at foot of trees, RGBW spot around corners of house, etc)
Any information would be helpful.
I am even thinking about putting all the electrical panels and controls in a room that is climate controlled.

Thanks
The Pest
avid decorator and can't wait to get a reply Maybe from DAN.


PS I am looking at around at least 320 Channels

Hey Pest...

Not sure that I fully understand what you want to do. What I got out of your post is that you basically want to run hard wired "extension cords" from a central location to various areas of your house and yard for your display. That way you can protect the controllers in a safe, climate controlled area.

All sounds well and good, but very expensive and very inflexible. Suppose you decide that you want to run outlets to 8 mini trees in your front yard. Now suppose that the average length of that run is 30 feet from the house, but 60 feet from the "electrical room". Your electrician will have to run 8 separate runs of wire, nearly 500 feet, either in conduit or using armored, direct bury cable. That's for 8 channels. You're talking about 320. "OK", you say, "I can afford that." Great so far. What happens in 2 years when you decide that single channel mini trees just don't cut it, and you want to do 4 color trees? Can't do that unless you go to CCBs or some such... and in that case the controller is out with the string of CCBs anyway. I think it would be much more effective to have your electrician put in strategically placed circuits around your house and yard, and also have him run cat 5 to those areas. You will have to have a good idea of what you want to do before he starts wiring if you want to daisy chain your controllers (out in the yard, where they belong, IMO). Another option for the Cat 5 would be to run home runs from a central point to each area you think you might have a controller in the future, and have them all terminate on a patch panel. Then you can patch controller to controller from a central point... very flexible, but a bit complicated if things aren't well marked.

Just my 2 Lincolns. Good luck in your new house.

D.T.

[Guest Don Gillespie]

DownTown wrote:

Hey Pest...

Not sure that I fully understand what you want to do. What I got out of your post is that you basically want to run hard wired "extension cords" from a central location to various areas of your house and yard for your display. That way you can protect the controllers in a safe, climate controlled area.

All sounds well and good, but very expensive and very inflexible. Suppose you decide that you want to run outlets to 8 mini trees in your front yard. Now suppose that the average length of that run is 30 feet from the house, but 60 feet from the "electrical room". Your electrician will have to run 8 separate runs of wire, nearly 500 feet, either in conduit or using armored, direct bury cable. That's for 8 channels. You're talking about 320. "OK", you say, "I can afford that." Great so far. What happens in 2 years when you decide that single channel mini trees just don't cut it, and you want to do 4 color trees? Can't do that unless you go to CCBs or some such... and in that case the controller is out with the string of CCBs anyway. I think it would be much more effective to have your electrician put in strategically placed circuits around your house and yard, and also have him run cat 5 to those areas. You will have to have a good idea of what you want to do before he starts wiring if you want to daisy chain your controllers (out in the yard, where they belong, IMO). Another option for the Cat 5 would be to run home runs from a central point to each area you think you might have a controller in the future, and have them all terminate on a patch panel. Then you can patch controller to controller from a central point... very flexible, but a bit complicated if things aren't well marked.

Just my 2 Lincolns. Good luck in your new house.

D.T.

Good point DT the expense would be astronomical and the risk of something happening to a line would be a show stopper literally, I wouldn,t try this, I had my electrician run lots receptacles around my house that way I can expand when needed 10 contollers is more than enough for me.

[Santas Helper]

Pest,

First, welcome to the forum. Lots of great folks with great ideas.

I had 4 standard LOR 16 channel controller boards hardwired in a business I had. The controllers were mounted in a metal bax on the wall and hardwired to the breaker box. Then I had all channels hardwired to the outside and branched off in seperate conduit to seperate outlets. 64 channels total was hardwired where I knew the set-up would be the same every season (windows, columns, doors, railing, etc...). Then I had seperate controllers set out for various things that might change from season to season. All worked out very well and was so simple to hook up. For a home application, I could see it being a similar deal.

Edit: I wired everything to save on costs and had an electrician inspect it for me.

And as others have mentioned, under the eves is a good idea too.

Good luck...

[The Pest]

Santas Helper that is what I am planning almost to the letter. I was thinking of running a min. of 16 channels to each point in the yard with 8 at each Bush, Eve's, and a few spots for misc. things and future. I was also planning on doing the work my self and having electrician certify it. as for the patch panel for other controls that was also in my plan I already have one 24ch patch panel.

What I was thinking is possibility of also using the wireless feature for certain things like a mega tree, certain other holiday props as well. Maybe LOR an also design a 32 or 64 chan. control for this type of install.

[cenote]

I would run lots and lots of conduit threw the house points, instead of wires. This will allow for any changes down the road to be able to easily change over wire. No less then 1", and to major points, two conduits. When I remolded parts of my house, I have drops from the attic to the basement control center, best thing I ever did. There packed now, 10 years later!

Suggest running to ever corner of soffets, a couple to each of the eves. Run pipes to outer most parts of the property, to each corners of the house, other side of driveways, etc.

Don't forget to drop in 3" or 4" pipes under driveways and walkways.

[CKSedg]

cenote wrote:

Don't forget to drop in 3" or 4" pipes under driveways and walkways.

Amen and amen! Oh how I wish I had done that ten years ago when I repoured my driveway!

[The Pest]

Yea I was already laying in the conduit runs in my blue printing. I was thinking of possibly going with some sort of bundled wiring package or just loose wire not Romex. I am also researching ways of keeping any possible noise out of Data cables that will run along power feeds. I might have to run a second conduit for that though. I have already thought about having at least 500 Amp service installed, plus I am planning on having my own power generation like solar and wind in line too. If it goes how I plan I would have enough amp's to cover my whole house plus extra. Might even think about having a backup generator for more amperage.

[scubado]

I bought my first house 2 1/2 yrs ago and built raised flowerbeds with rgbw led's in them. I ran 1/2" conduit with 6 14g wire and a 12g common nuetral. I added more controllers this year and had to replace one of my conduits with a bigger one. I have a couple controllers and wiring as permanent and will be mounting one(first) controller outside. Depending on what you use for landscape lighting, there's a lot of 12V lighting things you can do, either buy or make your own.

When you hardwire your channels, use 14g wire, you'll get more channels per pipe and much cheaper.

[rwertz]

You might want to consider the new Power Line Control (PLC) technology that LOR is looking at adding.

[Santas Helper]

The Pest wrote:

just loose wire not Romex.

Def go with loose wire. Romex is a pain.

having at least 500 Amp service installed, Might even think about having a backup generator for more amperage.

That much power might be a thing of the past if you're planning to use LED light.

Here is my display last year with everything on one little ole 15 amp outlet on the front porch. Everything is LED except the star.






Attached files

[The Pest]

Santa's Helper do you have a video of your display? I would like to it action. I have a few ideas but I really need to wait till I get the house blue printed so I can set the lighting up on it in Visualizer. to see if it will look good.

[Santas Helper]

The Pest wrote:

Santa's Helper do you have a video of your display? I would like to it action. I have a few ideas but I really need to wait till I get the house blue printed so I can set the lighting up on it in Visualizer. to see if it will look good.

I do have video but I need to set aside a little time to get it on the computer and out to the public. What the heck have I been doing all year to not have that done already? I'll see if I can make it a priority.

[The Pest]

No rush I know it is the time to be dealing with Halloween and then have to start with X-mas. I think i'll let everyone know that i first learned of LOR when I was working for Disney when the first got the Osbourne Family Spectal of Light's. So I know what it takes to Setup/install and then Test every thing.

[Guest guest]

CKSedg wrote:

cenote wrote:

Don't forget to drop in 3" or 4" pipes under driveways and walkways.

Amen and amen! Oh how I wish I had done that ten years ago when I repoured my driveway!

When running it outside, add pull boxes to make it even easier to access those conduit runs along the way. Just don't home run everything with no access points along the way.

My automation guy had to push me hard to add as many as he did when I built the house, seemed like overkill, but I don't regret it now.

[Max-Paul]

Pest,

According to NEC, you are not suppose to put low voltage wires like Cat5 and power wires in same conduit. Now I will say that there are those who will agree and those who will disagree with me. But I do my darnest to keep my power leads away from my comm cables. To much noise on the wire can and has messed with the operation of the controller. When I lay my wires on the ground, I keep the AC and Cat5 at least a foot apart when running in parallel.

[rwertz]

Max-Paul wrote:

Pest,

According to NEC, you are not suppose to put low voltage wires like Cat5 and power wires in same conduit. Now I will say that there are those who will agree and those who will disagree with me. But I do my darnest to keep my power leads away from my comm cables. To much noise on the wire can and has messed with the operation of the controller. When I lay my wires on the ground, I keep the AC and Cat5 at least a foot apart when running in parallel.

Good point Max. I try for 12" or greater spacing wherever possible. The last thing you need is spikes on your power line (from dimming) getting into your comm. lines.

[hcl1]

If you where wanting to cut down on the amount of electrical I would mount controllers in an accessible area new the area that you are wanting to control. If wire cost is not a expense just get a big peice of plywood and mount it up and have at wireing everything. You could then set up controllers how I make my larger controllers. Here is my 80 channel one I have in the works. It is all individualy fused for each of the 10 circuits that can be fed from one 60 amp line.

Attached files