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XMAS Flood


Ponddude

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Orville wrote:

-klb- wrote:
As I understand what was posted late last summer, you should be able to connect the flood controller into the LOR network like any other controller. It just happens to only be a 6 channel controller. You also connect the power supply for the flood lights into this controller, and you plug the two RGB floods into this controller. Then each flood takes 3 channels. One for Red, one for Green, and one for Blue... To get white, turn all 3 on at the same time. For orange, 100% red, about 20% green, and zero blue.... To get a pale orange shade. start adding both green and blue...

Of course, this all presumes that it has not (or will not) radically changed since what we saw presented last year.



So if I'm understanding this correctly, I have my 16 channel LOR CTB16PC, which will not take any channels from it to run the spots, so then since the spots have a 6 channel controller of their own, that in essence would make 22 channels total between the spot controller and the 16 channel CTB16PC I currently have, is this correct? (the 6 being dedicated specifically to the spots from their dedicated controller.)

Those spots look really cool and I'm hoping to also invest in some as well, just want to make sure I know how to use them when I get them!:cool:


Unless things have changed since the last information was put out, you understand it correctly.
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If these floods have an affordable price I can definitely put a few to good use...

They will be especially use full if they can be used to make colors like orange for Halloween which always are hard to find.

And if they can change colors fast, which some thing tells me they would be able to do. I could replace the groupings of different colors spot lights I am starting to generate.

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I expect they are fast enough at changing colors that you can use them as strobe lights. I've got some DMX LED light bars that I use in my entry way that work wonderfully as strobe lights. And you can pick what color they are blinking on and off, but the highest brightness is in white...

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csf wrote:

If these floods have an affordable price I can definitely put a few to good use...

They will be especially use full if they can be used to make colors like orange for Halloween which always are hard to find.

And if they can change colors fast, which some thing tells me they would be able to do. I could replace the groupings of different colors spot lights I am starting to generate.




I can safely answer these questions, since I had the priveldge to use the "original prototype XMAS Floods" that BRegal mentioned, in my display this past season. These are 2 custom hand built units. Craigs circuits design is pure artwork and his fit and finish is beyond belief in everything he does. I am very proud to be able to have them! I used the IDMX to operate them since that is how they were originally designed. Needless to say they worked flawlessly.

The LOR units will have their own controller. That will save you precious channels to do more cool things with in your displays!

What color do you want? orange , purple ? Click here to see a few easy colors I made up. I used the simple "windows paint" to come up with the color ratios (0-255) for DMX.



How fast are they? How quickly can you do an on/off? At 4:00 in the video they are flashing at a rate of .04, with all 9 LEDS making a bright white, so they basically strobed. That is the only time they are used in the video.

http://www.vimeo.com/9013989


*The video was shot with my Sony Cybershot t70. Even though it is 8.1mpx it is not a great camera for night filming of lights, but it does the job for now. ( I will have a HD Camcorder next season) The floods are MUCH MUCH brighter than the video shows! (The small CCS in the camera does not allow enough light in video mode, the photos are more accurate as to their actual brightness)


Before I get bombardded with the magic question... I cannot advise on when they will be available, but I know you will be EXTREMELY happy with them!
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  • 3 months later...

LOR.....Are these flood lights going to make it to your product list soon?

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I just went ahead and built 8 of the Mighty Mini floods and use two of the LOR DC cards for them.

Might not be quite as bright as the Xmas Flood may be, but I have them doing a Red, White, Blue wash on my house right now as part of the Memorial Day display.

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Of course I have no idea about the Xmas Flood, so I can't refer to it at all. But I did a little test of all the LED floods I could come up with, and took them to Light Up Ohio 2010. I built the Mighty Mini, the PortaFlood, and the Rainbow Flood, along with detailed pricing info. After the Friday night Meet and Greet, some of us went over to the building to setup for Saturday. We set up all three of these floods outside shining on the building, of course this was after dark. Then on Saturday I had all 3 floods set up again, so all attendees could view them in action. The one that won out, and it is a relative new comer was, the Rainbow Flood. It is made with piranha leds, and they are very bright. Also, it ended up that the Rainbow Floods were the least expensive to build, and they were 12v. I am doing a how to as we speak, and the results will be on our website within the next couple of weeks. http://www.lightupohio.com I put together a single one, and now I have a double one made and tested. I am not affiliated with Rainbow Floods at all, but they were simply the best in the 3 tested, in my opinion and a majority of attendees at LUO 2010. Feel free to pm or email me if you have any questions.

Bill

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Thanks Bill,

Look forward to the how to. Its about time to pull the trigger on some LED floods. Looks like the XMAS floods (or whatever its gonna be called) not gonna make it into the running on time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bill Hoffman wrote:

Of course I have no idea about the Xmas Flood, so I can't refer to it at all. But I did a little test of all the LED floods I could come up with, and took them to Light Up Ohio 2010. I built the Mighty Mini, the PortaFlood, and the Rainbow Flood, along with detailed pricing info. After the Friday night Meet and Greet, some of us went over to the building to setup for Saturday. We set up all three of these floods outside shining on the building, of course this was after dark. Then on Saturday I had all 3 floods set up again, so all attendees could view them in action. The one that won out, and it is a relative new comer was, the Rainbow Flood. It is made with piranha leds, and they are very bright. Also, it ended up that the Rainbow Floods were the least expensive to build, and they were 12v. I am doing a how to as we speak, and the results will be on our website within the next couple of weeks. http://www.lightupohio.com I put together a single one, and now I have a double one made and tested. I am not affiliated with Rainbow Floods at all, but they were simply the best in the 3 tested, in my opinion and a majority of attendees at LUO 2010. Feel free to pm or email me if you have any questions.

Bill

Bill - When you performed the test, did you use a single board RF or a double board RF?

attachment.php?id=11318
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dmoore wrote:

Bill Hoffman wrote:
Of course I have no idea about the Xmas Flood, so I can't refer to it at all. But I did a little test of all the LED floods I could come up with, and took them to Light Up Ohio 2010. I built the Mighty Mini, the PortaFlood, and the Rainbow Flood, along with detailed pricing info. After the Friday night Meet and Greet, some of us went over to the building to setup for Saturday. We set up all three of these floods outside shining on the building, of course this was after dark. Then on Saturday I had all 3 floods set up again, so all attendees could view them in action. The one that won out, and it is a relative new comer was, the Rainbow Flood. It is made with piranha leds, and they are very bright. Also, it ended up that the Rainbow Floods were the least expensive to build, and they were 12v. I am doing a how to as we speak, and the results will be on our website within the next couple of weeks. http://www.lightupohio.com I put together a single one, and now I have a double one made and tested. I am not affiliated with Rainbow Floods at all, but they were simply the best in the 3 tested, in my opinion and a majority of attendees at LUO 2010. Feel free to pm or email me if you have any questions.

Bill

Bill - When you performed the test, did you use a single board RF or a double board RF?

attachment.php?id=11318



I had the single one with me for the test, I hadn't built the double one by then.

Bill
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I'll echo Bill's comments - hands down the Rainbow flood was brighter than the Mighty Mini and Portaflood, not to mention having a smaller physical footprint.

Nothing like seeing these units side by side, in person, to really assess the merits of each.

Interestingly the size of the wash between units was fairly equivalent...

As of today, if I was building LED floods/washes, I would choose the Rainbow flood.

Given the rapid advancement of LED technology even better units are likely to be on the near horizon, but given the affordability of these units, how can you lose with any of these?

Greg

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You are so right, Greg. This is the year of the LED Flood, and a great year for people like me who has been looking for a decent color wash for several years. Of course there has been lots of talk about the X-mas flood coming out, there is one out now called the V-Flood and you can build a V-Drive to go with it to control the current to the leds, and right around the corner is the Aether, which will be out soon, I'm very excited to see this one. So the choices are going to be amazing this year, you just have to decide what is best for your particular situation and your bank account.

Bill

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Bill Hoffman wrote:

You are so right, Greg. This is the year of the LED Flood, and a great year for people like me who has been looking for a decent color wash for several years. Of course there has been lots of talk about the X-mas flood coming out, there is one out now called the V-Flood and you can build a V-Drive to go with it to control the current to the leds, and right around the corner is the Aether, which will be out soon, I'm very excited to see this one. So the choices are going to be amazing this year, you just have to decide what is best for your particular situation and your bank account.

Bill



It sure seems you are right that this seems to be the year of the LED flood. It seems that LOR might miss the boat if they don't get the XMAS out soon and at a reasonable price. It seems that there are multiple quality, cheap alternatives available now. I have kinda been holding out to see what LOR will offer, but I admit I am tempted to test the waters with these alternatives. What is holding me back is that I don't own a DC controller (just have CTB16PCs), and was hoping that wouldn't be needed with XMAS route. Am I wrong in assuming that?
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Surfing4Dough wrote:

Bill Hoffman wrote:



It sure seems you are right that this seems to be the year of the LED flood. It seems that LOR might miss the boat if they don't get the XMAS out soon and at a reasonable price. It seems that there are multiple quality, cheap alternatives available now. I have kinda been holding out to see what LOR will offer, but I admit I am tempted to test the waters with these alternatives. What is holding me back is that I don't own a DC controller (just have CTB16PCs), and was hoping that wouldn't be needed with XMAS route. Am I wrong in assuming that?

If memory serves me correct, you don't need a DC board with the Aether fixture. The flood plugs directly into 120v. The only connection is for DMX control and even that can be set up as wire-less. A real slick set-up
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Dave is right, the Aether is going to be a force to reckon with. I'm thinking you can even change the Aether from a flood to a spot just by putting on low cost led caps. I need so many of the floods this year, the bang for your buck theory is what I'm going to be driven by. Although it looks like the Aether is going to be a fair price considering what you will be getting. We will have to wait to see, I do know that you better order fast because there will only be one group buy for the Aether this year, or that is what RJ stated in a previous post.

Bill

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The biggest reason to wait for the mythical LOR/XMAS flood is plug & play - it will go right on a standard LOR network. It's also supposedly constant-current design, and will theoretically be fairly priced.

The Aether, V-Flood (with V-Drive), and others all require DMX. That's a steep price for those of us who don't have an iDMX, assuming we want to continue to run LOR S2 where that's the other option. If you're running even 10 floodheads, that adds about $25 to the cost of each one. I'm looking at running maybe 4-8 so it's even higher.

If you use the DC-board options (Rainbow flood, mighty mini, et. al) you're stuck using current-limiting resistors. Many have had good luck with that but some have not...

As I've noted in the other thread, I have a Rainbow flood that is waiting to be assembled and I'll see how that goes. I really, really wish we'd get an announcement on the LOR flood before the summer sale though... that will help me know if I should buy an iDMX, a DC board, or the LOR floods. It's been 18 months since Craig announced his XMAS flood, but to be fair, that was originally a DMX product as well...

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I am going to step in here for a minute an explain why the Rainbow Flood, and the majority of my stuff is still using current limiting resistors.

When the initial design for the Rainbow Flood was completed it was designed using constant current technology, therefore meaning no resistors. We were also developing the Rainbow Brain at the same time and the controller drove the floods using constant current technology. Than I got to thinking about how the Brain would operate, which is via DMX. Than I got to thinking even more about how many Rainbow Wall Runners were sold the previous year and what the people who use them would have to do. The version 1 wall runners would work just fine under constant current, but the resistor would of had to been removed and jumpers installed. This would have added to the work load of those that purchased the light last year. I than went back and checked over who purchased lights last year and it hit me that my biggest market is from LOR customers. DMX is widely used in the DIY world, including the LYNX equipment which a lot of people use, including myself. However, the majority of the people who purchased from me last year were LOR users. Right now, most people just can not afford to take the leap into the DMX world, simply because of the price of the iDMX. That meant the a vast majority of users could not use the Rainbow Brain.

After all of this thinking we went back to the drawing board and made the decision to stick with the current limiting resistor version of all our RGB products. This allows the majority of people to still use our products without having to work their way into the DMX world. Now, if you have the iDMX, you can use the Brain to control the lights or if you do not have the iDMX, you can still use the DC controller. I have personally tested the lights with the CMB-16D, the DCx16 and the Lynx MR16 controller and the lights work as designed. That really leaves the options to you as to how you want to run the lights. I also took the step to make it even easier for those of you that want to use our lights, but have never soldered in your life. That is why we introduced the assembled lights this year to allow everyone to have a low cost, extremely bright RGB flood light.

Another interesting idea is that the V-Drive, which uses constant current technology, can be attached to the Rainbow Flood, as long as you remove the resistors and attach a metal jumper where the resistors should go.

Moreover, I have been following the Aether and am extremely impressed with its abilities. Having a fully enclosed unit is really nice, but the price really worries me. I also understand the move to SMD technology, but a lot of people really do not have the ability to build components like that. The Aether has its possibilities, but I really think it is limited to the DIY, DMX world. Again, another reason for us offering our stuff already assembled.

I will say this, with the world of RGB lighting really coming to the forefront of our hobby, DMX is almost becoming a standard. I personally feel LOR has to step up to the game and either introduce a more cost effective version of the iDMX, or lower the cost of the current iDMX.

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I guess I’m basing my selection of LED Floods on brightness and cost effectiveness, since I need probably 12-15 of them, that’s what I’ve been comparing. As far as constant current and limiting current resistors, personally I’m not sure if I really care, unless the limiting current technology increases the brightness so much that it’s worth the extra money. I am no led expert by any means, but I have talked to a lot of people that are very knowledgeable about the subject. All of the people I talked to said that constant current resistors would probably make the led last longer, but 95% of them went on to say that the limited current leds would probably last me as long as I would ever need. So, basically I’m back to looking for the brightest option. I did order a couple of v-drive's to try with my Rainbow Floods, to see if it makes a difference in brightness. Also, I might say that William was nice enough to work on a BOM for the me, specifically for the Rainbow, because I guess it takes some different resistors on the board. He said he will have the BOM to me soon so I will be able to take it all to ICE. Basically, if the v-drive doesn’t do a whole lot for me as far as brightness, I will just use the Rainbow Floods along with 2 of my LOR DC boards, and simply use the v-drive Rainbows to test along side them for led longevity. I was lucky enough to find someone with an IDMX that he wasn’t using, and I had a Christmas item of equal value that he wanted, so we traded. So along with all of the led floods this year, I just ordered a "LASER". Wooohooooo lol

Bill

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