Guest guest Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 after my show ends for the night i wanted to turn on 2 300watt spot lights...my question is how long should the timing be in lor so i can get it to repeat5 mins? 10 mins? i read somewhere if its to long something messes up forgot what it was been a whilethanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 Looks like I used a 5 minute sequence last year for my after hour floods.PLEASE USE CAUTION!I did this last year, and it's possible this was the reason I lost a controller. Why? While I can't be sure, we think that water or moisture got into the base of the flood light, and caused the amp draw to go through the roof. Of course the fast acting fuse popped -- but not before damage to the board was done. From then on if I put any current on the board, it would blow the fuse, instantly.So, please, just make sure the base of your floods are protected from the weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 THanks Don i will check base Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 You can also build your own switch that will turn the flood lights on.I can't describe it accurately with proper terms, because I don't know them, but I saw this particular item at the recent So-Cal Mini Plus. I've sent a note to the person who I think showed it to us.Basically it's something like this: During the show the channel hooked to the device is on and that keeps the flood light circuit open so the flood lights aren't on. At the end of the show, the channel is off (by default) so the switch closes the circuit and the flood lights are on. I suppose it would make sense to have a light sensor on the flood lights as well, so they would be off during the day.This way the hi-amp power to the flood lights is not going through the LOR board at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 warcraft,Why not use the new LED floodlights from actionlighting.com. I am going to get some this week because I am at the end of my power budget, and this year I 'm trying to rid myself of all the rope lights and floods that draw so much power, and replace them with LEDs. They draw much less power. These new LED floods also put out better coverage and better color, not that fake painted color from hardware store colored floods.You can also run the floods off a sepeerate timer to get them off the controller.BUT...If you are also using your floods in the show and need to have them hooked up to your controller, use a small relay. This way, the controller channel triac ouput only controls a low control signal input switchable relay, with no danger of overloading. Now, your floods will be powered by the outlet insted of the controller, but will still be powered by the controller!You just have to make sure your relay is AC and not DC, that it can handle 120V, and that the control signal input can handle 120v coming out of the controller channel.See if X10 has anything for this, I'm sure they must. That's what they do for a living; control lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Dwight_Gleason wrote: You can also build your own switch that will turn the flood lights on.I can't describe it accurately with proper terms, because I don't know them, but I saw this particular item at the recent So-Cal Mini Plus. I've sent a note to the person who I think showed it to us.Basically it's something like this: During the show the channel hooked to the device is on and that keeps the flood light circuit open so the flood lights aren't on. At the end of the show, the channel is off (by default) so the switch closes the circuit and the flood lights are on. I suppose it would make sense to have a light sensor on the flood lights as well, so they would be off during the day.This way the hi-amp power to the flood lights is not going through the LOR board at all.Dwight,Yes, that is my relay. The concept is simple to pull electrical loads away from LOR. I went to Mar Vac Electronics and purchased a relay rated at 25Amp for 110volts, along with a metal enclosure and 2' of 10awg wire just to be on the safe side. The relay itself draw only 2 watts of power from LOR and transfers the electrical load directly to the display bypassing LOR.The relay can be wired to be on or off by default. In LOR it is very important to program a dedicated channel just for the relay because this channel must be programmed either ON OR OFF. Additionally I color this LOR channel dark grey so if I accidentally draw anything other than on or off, it immediately contrasts against the other red, green and white colored channels.The relay is not a good candidate to be an active part of a display. Being a physical device, it is slower responding than the electronic switches (triacs) used inside of LOR. Every sequence I run is a musical sequence. Some songs are synchronized to music and some are the static portion of the display that are not synchronized, both types of sequences have lights and music. The reason I use the relay is because the static part of my display has multi-colored motifs, motors, use variable resistors for lights, have in-line light controllers, etc. During my synchronized sequences, the static part of my display is turned off then back on at the end.The whole relay assembly, including misc. parts costs under $50.Greg ZimmermanPS. I have actually tested it and it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 ggregzim,Relays are very quick and instantaneous. Maybe you are thinking of some of the X-10 devices which I hear are notorious for 1 second delays.I would bet that the X10's are slower due to built in parasitic capacitance, or maybe X10 tries to smoothen out control voltages first, to prevent voltage overshoot and add protection, which may add delay. Remember, when X10 created their switches, they were meant for slow speed one time on or off functions for lights, not for dancing 16 times a second to LOR controllers.Remember, voltage cannot change instaneously in a capacitor, but it can in an inductor or transformer inside a relay.But relays by nature are extremely fast, because they are switched by magnetic field around the magnet. Relays should be as fast or faster than triac outputs of the controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 didnt think about the led floodlights would help save some moneyi dont plan on using this floods during the show plan was to turn them on after the has ended Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Warcraft:Use the floods as part of your show dude!The way they fill an entire wall, will make it look like your show is controlling a lot more lighting than it really is, and provides good background mood lighting too!Once you get the LED floods, hook them up to one of your other channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 jeffostroff wrote: ggregzim,Relays are very quick and instantaneous. Maybe you are thinking of some of the X-10 devices which I hear are notorious for 1 second delays.I would bet that the X10's are slower due to built in parasitic capacitance, or maybe X10 tries to smoothen out control voltages first, to prevent voltage overshoot and add protection, which may add delay. Remember, when X10 created their switches, they were meant for slow speed one time on or off functions for lights, not for dancing 16 times a second to LOR controllers.Remember, voltage cannot change instaneously in a capacitor, but it can in an inductor or transformer inside a relay.But relays by nature are extremely fast, because they are switched by magnetic field around the magnet. Relays should be as fast or faster than triac outputs of the controller.The relays are relatively fast, just not as fast as an electronic switch. The magnet inside once energized, pulls the mechanical arm from one contact point to another and hence the slight delay. Another issue I have not looked into is heat buildup if used continuously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Most "general purpose" relays are rated for continuous operation...meaning that they have taken the heat buld up in to consideration.You should be "OK"! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 jeffostroff wrote: Warcraft:Use the floods as part of your show dude!The way they fill an entire wall, will make it look like your show is controlling a lot more lighting than it really is, and provides good background mood lighting too!Once you get the LED floods, hook them up to one of your other channels.ill give that a shot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 See the latest photos showing our relay.http://planetchristmas.mywowbb.com/forum25/13141.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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