32 Channel Controller

[Redbirdruss]

I was just daydreaming about 2011 and improving my 8 mini trees.
I have a small yard and I have discovered that more control over color and location really adds to my overall presentation.
My idea was to have 8 Mini-Trees with 4 colors and 4 stacked sections each. Unfortunately this means I will require 16 channels for each mini-tree. If I extend that to my 2 Yard Trees and 2 porch trees and my Wreath, All of a sudden, I am up to 20+ controllers. I am going to have to upgrade my electrical service and add outlets just to connect to power. Since I am running all LED's a single Contrller with 32 Channels sure would be helpful.
Thoughts?

[cmoore60]

If you are running all LED, why would you need to upgrade electrical service?

I have a mega tree with 9600 LED lights 64 channels and it only draws about 2 amps with all the lights on at one time. My entire display with 24,500 lights is about 37 amps. mix of LED and incan lights.

This is one of my controller boxes for the mega tree.

Chuck



Attached files

[Guest guest]

To compare, I'm running 14 mini-trees, 3 colors, all 100 light mini incans, smaller trees have 1 string/color, mid size 2 strings, and a couple "bubba trees" with 3 strings per tree. Even then, with 42 channels managing those trees, I'm running comfortably from a power standpoint..I have filled all 48 channels with the remaining "stuff" in the yard, so yea, I hit the wall as far as having any more channels available this year.

With LEDs, can't imagine you'd have to go the route of a power upgrade....I don't have my s'sheet on this computer, but if I recall, with the way I have things spread out, I'm nowhere near the limit of any one bank of 8 channels, or my dedicated outlets (I'm feeding everything from a 60A/240V circuit split to give me 120).

Looks like the decision you'll need to make from a channel standpoint is the stacked section idea...that quadruples your channel needs..sounds like a cool idea, but the a very pricey one..

[Redbirdruss]

Wow! Love that controller box! Is that 32 channels?
My hope would be to avoid building my own boxes. Although I have rudimentary "Honey-Do" skills, I try to avoid all things electrical:D.

I am not as worried about actual power useage as I am about the shear number of outlets I would need and the increase of possible failure points.

What is the maximum number of boards that can be installed in one enclosure?

[Redbirdruss]

Wow! Love that controller box! Is that 32 channels?
My hope would be to avoid building my own boxes. Although I have rudimentary "Honey-Do" skills, I try to avoid all things electrical:D.

I am not as worried about actual power useage as I am about the shear number of outlets I would need and the increase of possible failure points.

What is the maximum number of boards that can be installed in one enclosure?

[JBullard]

Redbirdruss wrote:

What is the maximum number of boards that can be installed in one enclosure?

I have five 16 channel boards in one enclosure for my megatree. The box has room for a 6th board if needed.

[jimswinder]

I have a 9600 lights / 96 Channel Weber Tree...

I have 9 enclosures (12x12x6 from Lowes) and 0ver 42,000 lights total

5 with 3 Boards in them (48 Channels) and 4 with 4 boards (64 Channels) and then another two controllers with just 16 channels (my original 32 channels from last year).

All run off of 4 - 15 amp breakers...that are also hooked up to other things in the house.

But I run 100% LED's.

[Paul Roberson]

Yeah, I would have to agree with the "I don't think so" on the power upgrade. My mega tree has 96 strings 100ct LEDs and a 3 channel incan rope light star, and 36 strobes all on 100 channels. ALL the controllers are plugged into the same outlet, and its no where near 15 amps. (8.56 amps to be exact). Rope light star is 1.14 amps of that.

I also have 12 mini trees running 4 colors each. I have one controller for each color on these, and did use 4 seperate gfci outlets for them so if one color tripped the gfci then they would not all go off. : )


I could go for a 32 channel light controller from LOR if it could be cheaper than 2 16 channel ones.

[TJ Hvasta]

I've been touting going to Habitat For Humanity's ReStore and getting a big breaker box for cheap.. the one by me has large boxes for $10-$15.. they would easily fit 4-6 boards, are metal and have punchouts for the cabling.. and buying at HfH helps the neighborhood.

[jimswinder]

Paul Roberson wrote:

I could go for a 32 channel light controller from LOR if it could be cheaper than 2 16 channel ones.

I suggested it before...they should somehow be modular...

each module would be like 8 or 16 channels...if you want 64 channels, just plug 8/4 of them together.

[-klb-]

They do have sort of a modular solution today, in the DIO-32 and daughter cards. But they do tend towards the higher current solutions. Plus, you have to come up with an enclosure for them all...