Red/Green/Blue/White strings tied together?

[ace_master]

I've decided I need to upgrade my entire Christmas light display to LEDs this year and was thinking about the capabilities of RGB color mixing options on everything.

Whats everyones take on zip tying Red, Green, Blue, and White strings together along their length and then applying them? Also what about yellow... with it being a primary color, would it make any sense to drop the green and add yellow? Would I still achieve that Christmas green with the yellow and blue combination?

Do the colors actually create impressive colors such as orange/purple/yellow...?

Is the white necessary for an optimal display? And would you go with Warm White/Polar White/Pure White?

And last but not least... do you know of a source that would deal a great discount on these... I'm looking to buy at least 10 strings to each (30-35ft lengths), and I really don't want to have to cash out 3 weeks salary doing it.

[LENNY RUEL]

Ace:

A lot of us tie together multiple strings of lights. They are called Super Strings and it makes hanging them easier as you are putting up 3,4 or however at once instead of one at a time.

Unfortunatly the RGB mixing doens't work on light strings, they are the color they come, period. The RGB mixing is for LED spots, Cosmic Color Ribbon, etc.

100 lights strings will get you close to 35' at 33'. The BEST deals on good profesional grade lights is a couple months after the holidays when everyone does the presale.

You can get these lights for the close to the price the big box stores sell their much poorer quality ones. For instance this past presale I bought close to 15,000 LED's from CDI in various sizes ,C6, M6 etc and only 100's The Greens are always one of the most expensive and you won't find many if any at the big boxes as they only want one price point for a particular brand and string length. But lets look at a multi string of C6...a 70 ct string was $8.25. Most of the big boxes are 50 or 60 and will be in the $7 to $12 range at no where near the quality. I didn't buy any 100 ct multi but did Red and Green at $10.25 and $13.00 respectively.

White is a personal preference but Warm white is closest to the incandescent slightly yellow tint rather than the others slightly blue hue.

Lenny

P.S. usually we only tie Super Strings at the ends so IF one goes bad it's just a matter of snipping a couple ties rather than one every few feet.

[Steven]

ace_master wrote:

Would I still achieve that Christmas green with the yellow and blue combination?

Colors don't work this way. You are thinking of subtractive (paint) primary colors, which are really Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. Additive (light) primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue. To get Yellow, add Red and Green, to get Purple (or Magenta) add Red and Blue.

However...

LENNY RUEL wrote:

Unfortunatly the RGB mixing doens't work on light strings, they are the color they come, period. The RGB mixing is for LED spots, Cosmic Color Ribbon, etc.

If you put the bulbs close together, and stand far away, or look at the super string sideways out of the corner of your eye, or look at its reflection off a white wall, or if you're nearsighted and take off your glasses, then the RGB mixing will sort of work.

[amcdonald307]

At the risk of being ostracized by the rest of you, I have a different take on mixing colors with superstrings. On my mega tree last year, I had Red, Green, and Blue.

Granted, my viewing area is 200' from the display, and this isn't the greatest video, but here you can see where I mix them:

Although they don't look like white light bulbs, I am happy with the approximation I get of it mixing them this way. (I find I really have to tone down the blue compared to green and red).

I like the effect enough I am replacing all my C9's eve with RGB strings and intend to mix them the same way.

In the editor for this year, I actually converted my mega tree channels to be RBG channels. I ended up with an ugly aqua color in a sequence I really hated hand mixing them last year that was hard to identify in the editor. When I converted it to rgb, I was able to find it right away.

[Steven]

amcdonald307 wrote:

On my mega tree last year, I had Red, Green, and Blue.

That's a very impressive white for RGB superstrings! Does it look that good live or is the video camera doing some blending?

What kind of bulbs? 5mm concave or faceted? Did you tie the individual bulbs together?

I'd like to see if the eave lights blend as well.

[ace_master]

Thanks for the quick replies all...

amcdonald307; I really like the capabilities of the tree you have in your video. That seems to be quite effective. What bulb size did you use?

I really wish they has RGB strings with multiple plugs incorporated.

My viewing range will be between 50 and 200 ft.
Should I assume my best bet would be to stick to small M5 LEDs so I can get them as close together as I can? Or should I go with C6?


Don't mean to hijack my own thread, but does anyone have an opinion on eBay store: Christmas Central? Quality of their products? They seem to have a rave rating at 137,000 feedback/99.4% Positive... I'm just wondering if there products are any better than department store lights.

[edvas69]

I have upgraded all my lights this year to be RGB LEDs, with these im able to create any colour i want with some great effects. The way of the future

The best place to get more info on RGB and pixel based lighting is http://forums.auschristmaslighting.com/index.php

[amcdonald307]

The tree uses M5 LED 70cnt strings. I think I use 32 strings of each color over 8 channels. I tied one of each color together with a zip tie at each end and one in the middle.

To be fair the camera did blend that to look more like white lights in the video than in person. Here is the best close up video I have of the set up, the tree kicks in about 46 sec. I wasn't going for white in this sequence, it is full on all 3 colors and gives a nice blue-ish tint (my kids like that color and it was more about power than color - to make white I would only turn blue on to only about 60% I think). But, I think it is a fair representation of what it looks like:
http://www.vimeo.com/8546746

And on the editor, no I did not mean to imply it knows what exact ratios to mix the strings to make a given color - it assumes all 3 all on make white. Last year, before the RGB tool and before I had the display set up actually, I put a super-string out in the yard (far away) and looked out the window while I tried different combinations (full red and 60% blue made a magnificent purple for instance). I made notes and called on that when I wanted a color from the limited palette I had tried. A fade from one color to another was very much a guess.
With the new editor I can at least use the RGB tool to do fades. I will have to go back and adjust the blue intensity, but at least I can get an approximation on the screen. I would think any set of lights would have different ratio needs, depending on the type and intensity.


Attached files

[GS]

Steven wrote:

ace_master wrote:

Would I still achieve that Christmas green with the yellow and blue combination?

Colors don't work this way. You are thinking of subtractive (paint) primary colors, which are really Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. Additive (light) primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue. To get Yellow, add Red and Green, to get Purple (or Magenta) add Red and Blue.

However...

LENNY RUEL wrote:

Unfortunatly the RGB mixing doens't work on light strings, they are the color they come, period. The RGB mixing is for LED spots, Cosmic Color Ribbon, etc.

If you put the bulbs close together, and stand far away, or look at the super string sideways out of the corner of your eye, or look at its reflection off a white wall, or if you're nearsighted and take off your glasses, then the RGB mixing will sort of work.

Check out the big brain on Steven. I agree 100%

I also agree with Andy, nice vids too. You can get very good effects with the 7 colors from RGB strings. I always use RGB super strings. I don't use white in super strings, IMHO, because it does not combine well with RGB it just dilutes them.

[LENNY RUEL]

I stand corrected on the string blending ability. amc your video shows it does work.

Probably not for my display with my mega tree being about 25' from the curb but from your distance that is awesome. Plus I'm using C6. But with your effect may be worth considering going to M6 next year and getting red-green-blue instead of adding white to my C6's I already have (red-green) Really nice stuff though.

Lenny

[GS]

LENNY RUEL wrote:

Plus I'm using C6. But with your effect may be worth considering going to M6 next year and getting red-green-blue instead of adding white to my C6's I already have (red-green) Really nice stuff though.

Lenny

I use only c6, but I do like m5 too.

[therealbigjim]

Being new to attempting to alter the out of the box set up I got form WOW lights....I was wondering how many channels you are using...... I found I was trying to do to much with just a few controllers. The result was about 60 drop cords. The color ribbon and similar products are cool but with about 3k in a 64 chanel system ( lights and cords) I am pushing the edge of my wife imposed butget. Short of selling my '68 mustang gt. the super string solution seems to be the way I will be going. No, my mustang is not for sale...

[amcdonald307]

ooo - I see above I said I used "8 channels" on the tree - I meant 8 channels per color (24 channels).

My breakdown (if you were asking me):
Ctlr#1:
Ch1-3 Holdman star on top of house
Ch4-6 red rope, multi C9, and white minis on eve and front of house
Ch7-8 left bushes, right bushes
Ch9-16 the eight North poles
Ctlr#2
Ch1-8 mega tree red (4 strings plugged into each channel)
Ch9-16 mega tree green
Ctlr#3
Ch1-8 mega tree blue
Ch9-11 megatree star on top
CH12-13 left and right strobes in megatree
Ch14 ornaments in megatree
Ch 15 (unused - what????)
Ch16 lawnlights and FM sign
Ctlr#4 - left arches (there are 2 - 8 section arches, and the 3rd arch is mirrored)
Ctlr#5 - right arches
Ctlr#6 - 11 snowflakes down front of house (the 5 unused channels I actually ran back into the house and used in an animation on our indoor Christmas tree)

I put the controllers in the yard as close to the elements as possible, but the north poles still have 40'-90' zip wire cords, the holdman star 3-40', and each of the mirrored arch sections uses a 35' cord (16 of those), and my grandaddy-of-em-all cord, 180' to the fm sign. Not hard to eat up a 1000' roll of spt. I use lots of 6' and 15' store bought cords. Except for the megatree, I would guess I only plug maybe 4 or 5 lights in directly to a controller!
The real killer is finding (reasonably priced) grounded cords to run from the outlet to the controllers. I only need 1 per controller, but they range from 40'-100' (and for some I have to stick 2 together).

*** always worth noting when the opportunity arises: do the calculations and know the load you are putting your controllers and cables. Not a big deal if you electrocute yourself, but your widow won't be able to re-sell your equipment if it burns up too...

[therealbigjim]

Thx for the rundown. I was on a laptop when I asked and had not seen all of your clips, After a while I watched them all, Great job.