LOR Powered Landscape Lighting

[DisneyMatt10]

Hey all,

Having recently installed LOR powered year-around landscape lighting, I thought I'd create a thread here to share some of my year-around landscape lighting. The lights I am currently using are the 8 10 watt LOR RBG Floodlights. So far I am pretty happy with the way they have turned out. The only downfall is for them to light up the house the way I want, they can't also light up the bushes. But that's a minor thing that I can overlook to be able to enjoy the lighting!! I'll be changing the lighting for Holidays, special events, special dates, ect. . .  Anyway, on with the lighting:

Our current landscape lighting is Red, White, and Blue. It has been this color since Sunday (9/11), and it will stay this way through Thursday.

 

I hope you all enjoy the photos that I'll be sharing, and any feedback is greatly appreciated. 
~Matt

[Santas Helper]

That looks really good Matt. 

I too run 10w RGB LED floods on my house.

[mpageler]

Very nice...thanks for sharing.

I've wanted to play around with LOR and landscape lighting but just haven't gotten around to it yet. Busy expanding my holiday display the last few years.  Maybe next spring.

[k6ccc]

Unlike most people here, my original venture into LOR was specifically for landscape lighting.  I had no intention to run a Christmas show - well that part changed...

First, here is a photo of the front yard while lit up for Valentines:

Along the wall to the right of the house are 17 roses spaced over almost 65 feet.  In front of each rose is a little over two feet of WS2811 smart strip (33 RGB LEDs each) on a brick edging with the strip lighting the rose and wall behind it.  Although there are actually 11 "pixels" per rose, they are configured in the SanDevices E6804 controller to be treated as one pixel per rose.  The lights on the two brick columns are now 234 RGB LEDs worth of dumb strip, and when this photo was taken really were pink although it's a bit washed out in the photo.  The address sign in the front of the left column has 99 RGB LEDs worth of dumb strip.  If you look half way between the big tree in the parking strip and the right end of the photo, just above the concrete block wall, you can see a bright line.  That is 5 meters of RGB dumb strip around the inside of a brick ring around a dwarf orange tree.  There is a similar ring partially visible behind the right hand column, and a third just to the right of the front bumper of my truck.  It's actually 25 feet behind the truck, but from the perspective of this photo, it is next to the bumper...  Immediately behind and above the third tree ring, are the porch steps which have RGB dumb strip on the underside of overhanging bull-nose brick.  That was primarily added because my Dad (who is about 90% blind) could not see the steps when they were rebuilt in the brick.  There are detectors that ramp up the step light strips when someone approaches the steps or opens the front door.  In the bay window to the right of the front door are three down lights that are LOR controlled, as is the front porch light.  Although it was not lit in this photo, there is a light on the end of the wall between my truck and the neighbor's car that is intended as security lighting, and is LOR controlled.  There are a total of seven white lights that light up the flag pole from several directions.  Lastly, on the back face of the brick edging on top of the concrete block planter to the right of the brick columns, is about 30 feet of WS2811 smart strip (282 RGB LEDs in 94 pixels).  They are not used all that often because the planter project is not completed and there are no plants in the planter yet...  Except for the three down lights in the bay window, everything is LED.  I light up special for Valentines Day (red, white, and pink), St. Patrick's Day (green - my Irish neighbor across the street loves that), Light up for Autism Day (light blue), Police Memorial Week (dark blue), 4th of July week (red, white and blue), and Halloween week (orange and purple).  This year I also lit up in the national colors of Belgium, France, and the USA following terrorist attacks, and dark blue after the police shootings in Baton Rouge and Dallas.  These were all done during the time that the president ordered flags to half staff following each of these events.  There are a bunch of photos on my web site (although I do have a few updates to do)

http://newburghlights.org/Landscaping.html

 

[DisneyMatt10]

Loving the landscape lighting you two have shared. Do you all leave your lights static throughout each night, or do you do color changes or fades, or anything like that??

~Matt

[k6ccc]

The tree rings and roses fade slowly, the rest is static.

Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android

[Santas Helper]

Matt,

My display is static but depending on what's going on, I might have them fade the different colors. But no LOR controller action. Just setting the mood for different nights.  

[PCRail]

Greetings Matt,

I just came across your thread which I realize is a few months old but, hopefully, you're still interested in the topic. Your pictures are great examples of the kind of control I'm after. I'm in the process of purchasing the components to assemble the permanent landscape and exterior lighting system that's in my head. Here's what I want:

• Smart RGB pixel strips on the house
• LOR 10w RGB spots on some palms
• LOR Smart pixel controller with standalone capability. No PC for simple sequences.
• LOR Dumb pixel controller with standalone capability.
• LOR Easy Link Wireless networking with controllers. Allows for changing standalone sequence or running more complex sequences without having to hard wire controllers which will be outside, under the eaves of the house.

I've purchase HolidayCoro.com smart RGB strips 10 pixels/meter since they are almost the same price as dumb pixels and my experience has been that smarter is better.

I'm waiting for the grab bag sale to try to cut the cost of this modest but expensive project.

Thanks for your post, especially the photos. Please let me know any more that you've learned through your experience and any thoughts about my plans.

Richard

[DisneyMatt10]

Hey Richard! What you are planning sounds good. I love the way my RGB floods look on the house. I change the lighting every month. Since it is February and Valentines day is the main Holiday this month our house is currently red, white, and pink. I'm working on uploading a photo, but every time I try I get an error that says: " There was a problem processing the uploaded file. Please contact us for assistance." 
 

Anyway, without knowing what your house looks like, it is hard to say if what you have planned out will look good, even though I'm sure it will look great! I can't provide any advice on using pixel strips for landscape lighting. I avoided using the strips year-round because I had read that the summer sun is really hard on the strips, so to avoid any issues I just don't leave them out. However, I can say the 10w RGB floods are awesome! I love mine, and I want more!! I mean, you can never have to many lights, right?! 

Good luck, be sure to share some photos with us, of how it goes!
~Matt 

 

[Little_b]

Hey Tom- How do you have your floods mounted in your eaves?

[Santas Helper]

A screw in the center hole of the mounting bracket and screwed under the eve. I removed the mounting bracket bolts and removed the bracket to do that.

The good thing about that is I can swivel it side to side to get the right angle I want.

The wiring is tucked under the lip edge of the trim.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Santas Helper

[ericg2000]

old thread revived... so how to do you turn them on and off daily?  do you run a generic program from dusk to dawn and change the color as needed? 

[Little_b]

I have a sequence/show for each month. January- blue, February- pink, etc.  I use the scheduler to run the show from my laptop, and at around 10:00 the colors show turns off and just the house lights with some of the yard lights show comes on for the rest of the night until morning.  I do adjust the times depending on when the sun starts coming up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6XOno7fUNo

Before using Pixels through the E1.31 network, I downloaded the show to my CMB16D-QC controller as a Standalone and used a timer.

[k6ccc]

On 1/1/2019 at 7:21 PM, ericg2000 said:

old thread revived... so how to do you turn them on and off daily?  do you run a generic program from dusk to dawn and change the color as needed? 

I must have missed this question.  With the exception of the minor holidays, my year round landscape lighting consists of two 4 minute sequences.  There is also a Startyp sequence and a Shutdown sequence.  The evening landscape show starts at 1600, but is set to start on a trigger.  The trigger is a light sensor that detects it getting dark to actually start the show.  The evening show runs until 2200 during the week or 2300 on the weekend.  When the evening show ends, the Shutdown sequence turns off most of the lights, but leaves the flag lights (two channels), front porch light, and a security light near where we park the cars.  Then an overnight show starts that has those four channels.  Both the evening and overnight shows have some interactive groups that control the lights on the front porch steps.  When the sun comes up, there is another interactive that turns the lights off (I had to do a cheater to accomplish that).

 

[dibblejr]

Ive often thought about placing triggers at various parts of my yard to help my color security cameras capture anyone trying take anything or worse getting led poisoning. I just would know where to start. I have driveway sensors on all sides and close to door entry points that sound an alarm in the house but it would be great to take that to the next level and light up their world and let my color night vision cameras capture them if needed.

JR

[TheDucks]

57 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

Ive often thought about placing triggers at various parts of my yard to help my color security cameras capture anyone trying take anything or worse getting led poisoning. I just would know where to start. I have driveway sensors on all sides and close to door entry points that sound an alarm in the house but it would be great to take that to the next level and light up their world and let my color night vision cameras capture them if needed.

JR

JR Your security cam NVR/DVR may have alarm contacts that can be triggered by Motion events. Just feed those closures to your controller/inpup triggers

[dibblejr]

2 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

JR Your security cam NVR/DVR may have alarm contacts that can be triggered by Motion events. Just feed those closures to your controller/inpup triggers

Yes, my NVR has 6 trigger outputs/ inputs. The problem with that is my system records continuously. In order to use those triggers I can only record "events". I don't trust event mode if the stuff hits the fan. 

Much appreciated reply though. Would prefer flash bangs and other fun pop up devices but my LEO friends may have problems with them.

JR

[TheDucks]

12 hours ago, dibblejr said:

Yes, my NVR has 6 trigger outputs/ inputs. The problem with that is my system records continuously. In order to use those triggers I can only record "events". I don't trust event mode if the stuff hits the fan. 

Much appreciated reply though. Would prefer flash bangs and other fun pop up devices but my LEO friends may have problems with them.

JR

2000 uF 12VDC capacitor with 120VAC applied to terminals.

Sorry Officer, Electronics Failure 😈

[dibblejr]

2 hours ago, TheDucks said:

2000 uF 12VDC capacitor with 120VAC applied to terminals.

Sorry Officer, Electronics Failure 😈

Yup- LOL

They all know me, probably would not even come to the house since no guns involved.

My neighbors are all retired military and other than some Vietnam flashbacks they would be gtg. May even bring drinks for the show.

JR

Edited January 30, 2019 by dibblejr

[TheDucks]

2 hours ago, dibblejr said:

Yup- LOL

They all know me, probably would not even come to the house since no guns involved.

My neighbors are all retired military and other than some Vietnam flashbacks they would be gtg. May even bring drinks for the show.

JR

I'm a member of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht  Club. The only gun fire we heard was the Sunday Skeet shoot off our fantail (bugged the h##l out of the Russian trawler shadowing us.)