Santas Helper Posted November 21, 2017 Author Share Posted November 21, 2017 On 11/18/2017 at 9:40 PM, Dennis Laff said: The best part of being retired is a lot of time to enjoy the Christmas hobby the worst part trying to get up off the ground after pluging in all those wires! Haha, Dennis, I already have the second part down. My knees retired before the rest of the body can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted November 21, 2017 Author Share Posted November 21, 2017 57 minutes ago, k6ccc said: Well, yesterday I finished my setup.Last thing to do was set that audio level on the FM and put out the Tune To signs. Did that shortly before going to bed. Had 20 minutes of the show set to run this morning for test as I was leaving the house to go to work. DAMN! One of the Tune To signs was not on, and worse, none of the 402 GE Color Effects lights on the eves and roof peak line were running. The GECE bulbs were working yesterday afternoon while doing some testing. Tried to ping the E682 controller that drives the GECE bulbs and it's not responding. There is a four port network switch in the attic that supplies E1.31 connectivity for the pixel tree and the E682 for the GECE bulbs, and the pixel tree is working, so I have network connectivity to within three feet of the E682. So either the 5V power supply died, the E682 died, or a LAN cable came loose. No one has been in the attic so I doubt it's the LAN cable. That leaves the power supply or the E682. First guess is the power supply. That would be nice as I have a spare in stock. If it's the E682, I can steal the one that drives the perimeter string, and just use my WS2811 test generator to make some pattern on the one string until I replace the E682. I guess I'm happy it died today and not Friday (opening night)! hey Jim, hope it's an easy fix for ya. Sounds like you have it covered either way. I love having options/spare parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 8 minutes ago, Santas Helper said: I love having options/spare parts. Amen to that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince4xmas Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Up and running.......one day before family reveal! Why....how ever early you start.....if comes down to the last days! Love this hobby............sometimes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prevue12 Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 On 11/18/2017 at 7:42 PM, Santas Helper said: I'm scheduled off Monday and debating half days Tuesday and Wednesday to complete and test. I got a little behind because of the brutal wind today and knee/shoulder issues. Sucks getting old(er). Adding new 16ea RWB&G mini trees this year so new wiring (3,300 ft of wiring) and 64 female & males plugs is eating some of the planned time... I underestimated. I've still got a lot to do and testing as well. No pressure though, right? LOL Been there before, making that many cords chews up time and before you know it you are way behind. (Most of my "props" are RGBW also.) This year I made made my cords early as I sat on my behind in front of the TV couple weeks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMurray Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Well....... I told myself I was going to go dark this year due to time constraints of other things I have to do. I even packed away and organized everything from my Halloween light show. Not one thing left out, zero, zilch, nada. But I started hearing Christmas music and my CLAP flared up. I think I was going to have a nervous breakdown. So EVERYTHING came out again. What normally takes me 2-3 weeks or so to set up I've done in 6 days. It's after 3 o'clock in the morning right now and I've finished testing my setup. After fixing several snafus it is working as planned... For now (crossing my fingers). I'll be lighting up on Thanksgiving and for those who do too... Good luck!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted November 22, 2017 Author Share Posted November 22, 2017 36 minutes ago, BMurray said: Well....... I told myself I was going to go dark this year due to time constraints of other things I have to do. I even packed away and organized everything from my Halloween light show. Not one thing left out, zero, zilch, nada. But I started hearing Christmas music and my CLAP flared up. I think I was going to have a nervous breakdown. So EVERYTHING came out again. What normally takes me 2-3 weeks or so to set up I've done in 6 days. It's after 3 o'clock in the morning right now and I've finished testing my setup. After fixing several snafus it is working as planned... For now (crossing my fingers). I'll be lighting up on Thanksgiving and for those who do too... Good luck!!! Nothing like a last minute change of mind to get you motivated. Glad to hear all went well in such a quick amount of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted November 22, 2017 Author Share Posted November 22, 2017 9 hours ago, prevue12 said: Been there before, making that many cords chews up time and before you know it you are way behind. (Most of my "props" are RGBW also.) This year I made made my cords early as I sat on my behind in front of the TV couple weeks in advance. Mine are RWB &G. I'm a 26 year veteran. Wished I could have sat down in front of the TV and did my cords. That was not an option with getting the spacing perfect and applying the plug ends as they were laid out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted November 22, 2017 Author Share Posted November 22, 2017 10 hours ago, Vince4xmas said: Up and running.......one day before family reveal! Why....how ever early you start.....if comes down to the last days! Love this hobby............sometimes! I hear ya. I finished up the last big props (arches) yesterday and doing tests and adjustments tonight for the family reveal tomorrow (Thanksgiving day). thank goodness for nice weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedster Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Normally I'm all finished setting everything up the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but the weather has not been cooperating this month, so I'm about 4 - 5 days behind schedule. It's been unseasonably cold, very windy, rainy, and we even had snow 2 weeks ago. Plus this is our 1st year using LOR (used something else previously), and the setup time is longer than what I'm used to. I have a half-day of vacation this afternoon and we'll be home all day tomorrow (Thanksgiving), so if the weather cooperates I should have everything ready to light up by Thanksgiving night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 2 hours ago, BMurray said: Well....... I told myself I was going to go dark this year due to time constraints of other things I have to do. I even packed away and organized everything from my Halloween light show. Not one thing left out, zero, zilch, nada. But I started hearing Christmas music and my CLAP flared up. I think I was going to have a nervous breakdown. So EVERYTHING came out again. What normally takes me 2-3 weeks or so to set up I've done in 6 days. It's after 3 o'clock in the morning right now and I've finished testing my setup. After fixing several snafus it is working as planned... For now (crossing my fingers). I'll be lighting up on Thanksgiving and for those who do too... Good luck!!! Now wait a second Billy. Didn’t you do pretty much the same thing for Halloween this year? Just admit that you have an addiction and give into it ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMurray Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 2 hours ago, k6ccc said: Now wait a second Billy. Didn’t you do pretty much the same thing for Halloween this year? Just admit that you have an addiction and give into it ? I'll be there first to admit that I am addicted to this hobby ??. I think for the most part all of us on this forum are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 16 minutes ago, BMurray said: I'll be there first to admit that I am addicted to this hobby ??. I think for the most part all of us on this forum are Isn't admitting that you have an addiction the first of the 12 steps? I do not have any personal experience, but I heard that somewhere. I fully admit that I have an addiction, but see no need to "cure" it so I'm not moving on to step 2 (whatever that is). On another note On 11/21/2017 at 7:45 AM, k6ccc said: DAMN! One of the Tune To signs was not on Well that part was easy. Apparently it works better if you actually connect the cable from the controller to the pigtail cable coming out of the Tune To sign. Who would have thunk it? Tonight I'll climb up into the attic to fix the failure of all the lights on the roof. Still suspecting that the 5V power supply that feeds that E682 failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 On 11/21/2017 at 7:45 AM, k6ccc said: DAMN! One of the Tune To signs was not on, and worse, none of the 402 GE Color Effects lights on the eves and roof peak line were running. The GECE bulbs were working yesterday afternoon while doing some testing. Tried to ping the E682 controller that drives the GECE bulbs and it's not responding. Turned out the lack of GECE bulbs was exactly what my first guess was - the 5V power supply had failed. I have several spares in stock, so swapped it out and all is working! And as I said earlier, the Tune To sign worked better after I plugged it in.... We're all good to go for Friday night! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thebug Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 Did final testing tonight all appears to be working correctly. Also a budy came over with his drone got some way cool footage with that. All set for tomorrow's revel. I invited all my neibors, friends, family and Facebook people over to check it out. Hot spiced punch is all mixed and ready to be heated. Very excited! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffF Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 I has been very windy around here too. Face burn has been had on more than one day for sure. Final push was this week since I took it off of work and after four 10-12 hour days I am finally *almost* done. Just have the spiral tree to populate(frame is already setup) and then the strobes. I always shoot for December 1st but I also always try to have enough done to give the family a show Thanksgiving night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne K Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 Did final testing last night, all looked good at first then, I noticed controller 10 things did not look right had 4 channels that would not come on, but yet with hardware utility all would come on, but not individually on the corresponding channel. ( what the **** ) I thought now this controller just came back from lor for not showing up properly in H/W. So pulled the cover off and reset controller, same thing. So I turned on an unused channel and one section of light came on. So I did another unused channel and another section came on. So I pulled the controller this morning and took into the nice warm shop and got the meter out and done some testing. When I put the pigtails back on the controller, I had put cord 9 on 16 and cord 15 on 10 and cord 8 on 14 and so on. Works great now after a little rewire job this morning. All is a go for tonight as planned. Wayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted November 23, 2017 Author Share Posted November 23, 2017 Did a final test last night. A few tweaks and all is good. Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedster Posted November 24, 2017 Share Posted November 24, 2017 I moved a few things around and finished setting up the last part of our display (the Nativity Scene) at 4:15 today. I barely made my 5:00 pm light-up time for Thanksgiving Night, but despite the uncooperative weather, I did it! I'll make some changes next year, but overall I'm satisfied with my 1st LOR setup and everything seems to be working as expected. Big thanks to LOR help desk and all of you who helped me out over the last few months. I couldn't have done it without you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee T. Posted November 24, 2017 Share Posted November 24, 2017 Best of luck to all of you who went "live" tonight. Hope your displays bring some Christmas Joy to those who watch. The same goes to all of you who will be turning on your lights at different times in the coming days.. Our family tradition is to turn on the Christmas Lights on December 1st so that is when our show begins. That gives my wife and I a little more time to get everything in place, especially the three-fourths of a mile of extension cords. Merry Christmas to all of you on the LOR forums for all of your help and suggestions over the past year. Have a great bright and musical holiday season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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