Dcroc Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I see LOR offers 2 DC RGB boards. I'm running 10w RGB floods this year, and need a board to control/power them. Will probably end up with 8 to 10 floods. Which of the two DC boards offered are best suited for this? I would imagine they would fall under "dumb/basic", so that would rule out the pixicon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dietrich Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 CMB24D is a great controller for 8 - 10W floods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 The primary difference is that the CMB16D controls 16 channels and the CMB24D controls 24 channels. OK, that was the obvious part. The CMB24D was designed with RGB in mind so the connections are optimized for RGB operation. Also because it is a number of channels that is evenly divisible by 3, you can easily use all 24 channels when you are running all RGB lighting, whereas if using the CMB16D, you get 5 RGB devices with one extra channel left over. If you are NOT using RGB devices, the CMB16D may be better because the connections to the lights are better suited for individual channels. In my yard, for my year round landscape lighting, I have three CMB16D cards in use. At one location there are two 16 channel boards and I have six RGB strips, and currently one non-RGB channel in use - for a total of 19 channels. There will be two more non-RGB lights used at that location in a few more months. I bought a CMB24D in the spring sale, and MAY replace these two with the CMB24D. At another location there are three RGB devices for a total of nine channels being driven off my third CMB16D. I have no plans to replace that in part because the 24 channel board wont fit in the box. In your case, you say you will have 8 to 10 RGB devices. If you go with the CMB24D, you will run out of channel at eight. If you are going to go with 9 or 10 RGB devices, you might be better with two of the CMB16Ds. One other thing to keep in mind. The CMB24D is a 3rd generation board and will operate with 500K network speed and the new enhanced protocol that S4 introduces. The CMB16D is 2nd generation board, HOWEVER with a firmware upgrade (new firmware comes with S4.00.06 and later), the CMB16D is supposed to handle both the enhanced protocol and 500K speed. I will be testing that this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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