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I’m about 94% positive this is a dumb question


SoonerBorn

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Lowe’s has LED out door light strips/tape..

could a person use those hose for a leaping arch?  I don’t know the limitations on those compared to the others I see people make in videos.  

Im very green with this stuff and have a very remedial understanding of it all, but I’m learning.

So mercy street fellas if this is a dumb question.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

Probably not as they usually have a controller of some sort connected to them. It would help if you posted a link to them.

 

Thanks for the response, below I’ve linked the lights.  

LED Lights

Edited by SoonerBorn
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These look like the older GE ColorEffects which some members have had some success with. Contact k6ccc as I believe he has had some luck with them.

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Do you mean to cut these down to use as Arches or how do you intend to use them?   They do not have a controller, just steady on multi-colored LED bulbs in a tape configuration.   They may be able to be cut down, but not knowing their specs, or if they can be cut, some can, some can't.   And I have doubts these may be able to be.  Unless they have an actual "cut" line marked on them, you really won't know how to cut them down to make them work reliably or safely, you need to know a lot more to modify one of these type light tape/rope configurations.

And by the way,  I was taught a long time ago, there IS NO SUCH THING AS A DUMB QUESTION!  Only those one MAY NOT KNOW THE ANSWER TOO!

Unfortunately there is not enough information on these tape lights to make any definitive answer to your use for them.

If you're wanting to have RGB style Arches, you're better off looking into the LOR CCD Controllers and RGB Light Strands that are pre-assembled and come with the corresponding RGB light strands.  Yes, they are more expensive, but well worth the cost!  And once you get the feel of how to sequence them, very easy to add in and use.

 

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1 minute ago, Orville said:

Do you mean to cut these down to use as Arches or how do you intend to use them?   They do not have a controller, just steady on multi-colored LED bulbs in a tape configuration.   They may be able to be cut down, but not knowing their specs, or if they can be cut, some can, some can't.   And I have doubts these may be able to be.  Unless they have an actual "cut" line marked on them, you really won't know how to cut them down to make them work reliably or safely, you need to know a lot more to modify one of these type light tape/rope configurations.

And by the way,  I was taught a long time ago, there IS NO SUCH THING AS A DUMB QUESTION!  Only those one MAY NOT KNOW THE ANSWER TOO!

Unfortunately there is not enough information on these tape lights to make any definitive answer to your use for them.

If you're wanting to have RGB style Arches, you're better off looking into the LOR CCD Controllers and RGB Light Strands that are pre-assembled and come with the corresponding RGB light strands.  Yes, they are more expensive, but well worth the cost!  And once you get the feel of how to sequence them, very easy to add in and use.

 

Thanks for your help.  It answers my question.  Man I’m telling you I’m trying to just keep my head above water here with this stuff.  Very overwhelming, but I’m determined to do it and having fun learning new stuff...  I’m talking, I’ve got my lights hooked up to my controller and they’re doing what they should, but as far as adding sequences... Lol I’m still struggling and I’ve even had James Morris send me some.. I’m sitting at my PC now trying to figure out how to add them to my show 😂... 

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25 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

These look like the older GE ColorEffects which some members have had some success with. Contact k6ccc as I believe he has had some luck with them.

From the packaging and no info in the details, these look to be just plug in and they light up multi-colored.  no controller listed ion the packaging.  These are also refurbished/used, so have to be careful with those.  I bought refurbished items in the past, won't do that again, had more trouble with refurbished products many times.  Used, I have had better success with.  But 8 out of 10 refurbished products I purchased tended to fail within 2 months or so, not more than 4-6 months at most.  So I won't touch anything that's been refurbished like that.

Now if it were a LOR product that LOR was selling off at a discount being refurbished, I know the folks at LOR are extremely good at repairing their stuff, I'd have no problem with any LOR product refurbished item, as long as LOR is the one that did the work.  Anyone else, I'm NOT going near it!

Edited by Orville
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18 minutes ago, SoonerBorn said:

Thanks for your help.  It answers my question.  Man I’m telling you I’m trying to just keep my head above water here with this stuff.  Very overwhelming, but I’m determined to do it and having fun learning new stuff...  I’m talking, I’ve got my lights hooked up to my controller and they’re doing what they should, but as far as adding sequences... Lol I’m still struggling and I’ve even had James Morris send me some.. I’m sitting at my PC now trying to figure out how to add them to my show 😂... 

Open any sequence you got from James, open your newly created sequence, and then you can just highlight the row you want to use in your sequence, then copy it and then paste it into your sequence.   It's really quite simple once you get used to doing it.   I do that, even with my own sequences at times I create, as I may not like some aspects of it, so will create a 2nd version and paste from my original into the new one and then do some re-sequencing on a channel or channels I just didn't like in the first one, this way I can always go back and forth between the two and come up with a better sequence that what I initially created.

However, if you do opt to go RGB lighting and controllers, you'll need to upgrade your license level to PRO as that is the one that works best with RGB lighting, gives you a lot of options to work with.  You can use Advanced, but it still has some limitations, I just upgraded from Advanced to Pro just a few months back because I knew I would need all those extra perks to get the sequencing done I wanted to do in my display.

Good Luck and if you need any specific help on sequencing, please feel free to PM me with questions, Basic Controllers, like the CTB16PC I can help with, don't know the Gen 3 versions, as I have the previous versions, Version 2 of those, but they still work close to the same way with a few differences between them.  I'm also familiar with the CCD CCB-100 Pixel Controllers, again my are 5V, but the newer 12V ones work in the same way, they can just handle more pixels, mine is limited to 50 pixels per port {total of 100 pixels per controller}, the new ones can do 100 pixels per port {total of 200 pixels per controller}, each unit has 2 ports.  It sounds complex, but it's really not as complex as I thought it would be.

I have 5 of the older units, so sequencing 1500 channels for all 50 count pixel strands and 150 total lights as each RGB bulb is equal to 3 channels, so 50 bulbs x 3 RGB pixels in each equals 150 channels per 50 count strand.  And these are smart pixels.

Anyway, not trying to confuse you even further, but you may want to look at single color LED strands and create Arches from them for this year, it would probably be the easiest one to do or use incandescent bulbs.  I have 4 coro arches that are 3 channel and each section is 100 bulbs, clear incandescent bulbs are what I use for them,   Hoping one day to get more RGB controllers and RGB lights and eliminate the incandescent arches and have a more colorful arch in the future.  Just means I'll have to build all new arches, but it's time I retired these old Coro Arches. LOL

 

Edited by Orville
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Knowing what little I know. Still learning myself. If it’s the one I saw these do not have any chips in there to control the  light. And they were not able to be cut.   Also there way over priced.

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1 hour ago, ~DOC~ said:

Knowing what little I know. Still learning myself. If it’s the one I saw these do not have any chips in there to control the  light. And they were not able to be cut.   Also there way over priced.

the original link no longer works, but when I looked at them, they did have a chip in them, I think it was 888?7, 8807? or ??, it was something similar to the numbers.  But I just can't recall what the chip number was.  It WAS in the description in the original link of the chip type used.

So they were chip controlled, i just can't find the original lights the OP linked too, I just get a google store search and shows me something RELATED, but NOT the exact same thing the OP had linked too.

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40 minutes ago, Orville said:

the original link no longer works, but when I looked at them, they did have a chip in them, I think it was 888?7, 8807? or ??, it was something similar to the numbers.  But I just can't recall what the chip number was.  It WAS in the description in the original link of the chip type used.

So they were chip controlled, i just can't find the original lights the OP linked too, I just get a google store search and shows me something RELATED, but NOT the exact same thing the OP had linked too.

Must be a different product than what I looked at. There were no Chips in there to make them addressable. And only two wires now that I recall. 

Edited by ~DOC~
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On 11/12/2018 at 6:20 PM, SoonerBorn said:

.......Man I’m telling you I’m trying to just keep my head above water here with this stuff.  Very overwhelming, but I’m determined to do it.......

Sooners huh? Are you in the OKC metro? If so, there are many of us around here that can help you. Tuff time of season to get a lot of help, but we’ll try. Not talking about questions here necessarily as many people on this forum will try to answer any and all. I’m talking hardware, props, general hookup issues. Let us know. 

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1 hour ago, Mega Arch said:

Sooners huh? Are you in the OKC metro? If so, there are many of us around here that can help you. Tuff time of season to get a lot of help, but we’ll try. Not talking about questions here necessarily as many people on this forum will try to answer any and all. I’m talking hardware, props, general hookup issues. Let us know. 

Says completely ON. Sorry wrong post......ugh

Edited by ~DOC~
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3 hours ago, Mega Arch said:

Sooners huh? Are you in the OKC metro? If so, there are many of us around here that can help you. Tuff time of season to get a lot of help, but we’ll try. Not talking about questions here necessarily as many people on this forum will try to answer any and all. I’m talking hardware, props, general hookup issues. Let us know. 

No, I’m actually NE of Tulsa in Pryor.  

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7 hours ago, ~DOC~ said:

Must be a different product than what I looked at. There were no Chips in there to make them addressable. And only two wires now that I recall. 

What came up stated they had a chip, but didn't see no mention of a controller on the lights, which I thought was extremely odd.   Maybe that's why they aren't there now.  Someone didn't have a clue what they were selling.....I just have no idea!  Just going on what I read in the description when I first read this post.

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