Electrical wiring for controllers

[binary79]

I have a question about how you experts are providing power. My current house breaker is full. this is what I was thinking. please tell me if i'm on the right track. -- 3 LOR controllers. I usually add one a year. i doubt that I will ever have more than 8.

So I want to get 8 more dual plug recepticale's in the garage. pull a 30 amp wire off the back of the house breaker to a new wall mountable breaker. inside of it I need 8 30 amp switches. each runs to its own recepticale pair. from what i'm understanding about the controllers, every 8 channels uses 15 to 20 amps, so feeding 30 amps to a plug pair, and plugging each controller into a single jack pair should be ideal.

[ace_master]

That rating of 15-20 amps you're referring to is what the controller itself can handle in lights... there is little likelihood that you will have to worry about reaching those amps.

If you have lots of LEDs in your display, then you may not need to worry about running any extra outlets to your display area. You could use tens of thousands of LEDs off one plug with no issue.

[Don]

binary79 wrote:

from what i'm understanding about the controllers, every 8 channels uses 15 to 20 amps, so feeding 30 amps to a plug pair, and plugging each controller into a single jack pair should be ideal.

Each side of a controller can *support* 15 amps (as configured from the factory). The majority of LOR users won't come near that 15 amp limit. Even when my display at home was 100% incandescent, I only had one controller come near 12amps.

[OregonLights]

I'm not an electrician but it seems to me in order to get 8 ea 30a plugs you will need to install a 240a sub panel, not a single 30a feed to the sub panel. Since your main panel is full you could swap out some of your breakers for the split type and get more circuits. This way you could drop a few extra receptacles in your garage and eliminate the sub panel.

As Don mentioned, it comes down to how much power you'll actually be using though.

FWIW I have two dedicated 20a circuits in my front yard. But most of my display is LED so I don't have over 20a draw total...I could run everything off one circuit (and one plug for that matter). I plan to run a single power supply cord to each controller and jumper internally from one side to the other (cuts down on wiring). Then I just need to ensure I'm not overloading any single TRIAC in the LOR controller or any of the power feeds.

Hope this helps, sorry everyone if I'm mistaken on my approach!

[NickByrd]

I agree with Don. I have mainly incandescent lights and the highest amperage on a CONTROLLER (both sides) I have is 12.6 amps.

By the time it becomes an issue for me... I will be converted to all LED (hopefully).

[Dennis Cherry]

2010 display was 11 controllers and 4 CCR's

35,000 LED's, 24 snow flakes with 150 incandescent lights each, two 60 watt flood lights, and one rope light.

All ran on two 20 amp circuits.

Circuit #1: 7 Controllers, IDMX-1000,

Circuit #2: 4 Controllers, 4 CCR's, Wireless Transmitter, Timer with (Mini Director, EDM Transmitter, both flood lights, and Rope light).

Not ONE Circuit trip (GFCI or Maximum current) for the whole season.

All controllers, CCR's, and IDMX-1000 had 24/7 power.

It is how you program your songs allow you to do this.

[binary79]

Thanks to everyone for all of the response. After doing a calculation & inventory, it looks like I currently have 2700 incandescent lights, and 1500 LED total. Most of the feeble programming is very primitive, but I think its done well enough that every light on at once, only happens in very short bursts like the very end of the show, etc probably never longer than 3 seconds.

From what i'm reading, it appears that the single 15 amp outdoor jack that I have should be adequate, or at least very similar to what others are doing with many more than 3 controllers and 4500 lights (of which 1/3 are led)

[Shanta]

You might also want to consider that centrally locating all of your controllers may not be the best idea, leading to tons and miles more cord than necessary. I can see doing two controllers for my front yard, one for the far side of the drive, one for a mega tree, one for the roof and window frames, and one for the side yard. All located to keep cord runs to a minimum.

[schristi69]

Your first step should probably be to get a meter and measure the current draw on each type of string/display element you are using. Then you can calculate how much juice you will really need so you can balance the loads between circuits and controllers. Better to know how much you are pulling than to guess and troubleshoot when setting up.

[Guest wbottomley]

Shanta wrote:

You might also want to consider that centrally locating all of your controllers may not be the best idea, leading to tons and miles more cord than necessary. I can see doing two controllers for my front yard, one for the far side of the drive, one for a mega tree, one for the roof and window frames, and one for the side yard. All located to keep cord runs to a minimum.

Fully in agreement! No way would I try that to 45 units, lol.

[Guest guest]

binary79 wrote:

Thanks to everyone for all of the response. After doing a calculation & inventory, it looks like I currently have 2700 incandescent lights, and 1500 LED total. Most of the feeble programming is very primitive, but I think its done well enough that every light on at once, only happens in very short bursts like the very end of the show, etc probably never longer than 3 seconds.

From what i'm reading, it appears that the single 15 amp outdoor jack that I have should be adequate, or at least very similar to what others are doing with many more than 3 controllers and 4500 lights (of which 1/3 are led)

Do yourself a favor and download one of the calculators from here:

http://www.quartzhillchristmas.com/12.html

Last year, my first year, I way overestimated what I would need as far as power, and got a pleasant surprise when I took the time to set everything up in the calculator...I was fortunate enough to have an unused 240V/60A dryer circuit, and so split that to provide me a dedicated 30Ax2 source..with 3 controllers, never even came close to limits..and i'm 90% incandescents. Rough estimate, about 10K lights.

I just had a 200A service dropped in front of my house, dedicated to lighting up a separate 100x50 area that has always been dark at Christmas (my house sits way back from the road I live on, this area is between house and road)...and while I'm thinking about big time display ideas there, I'm also confident I won't come close to needing more than a few 20A circuits off that panel.

[Surfing4Dough]

schristi69 wrote:

Your first step should probably be to get a meter and measure the current draw on each type of string/display element you are using. Then you can calculate how much juice you will really need so you can balance the loads between circuits and controllers. Better to know how much you are pulling than to guess and troubleshoot when setting up.

Agree completely. Many use a Kill-a-watt meter for such measuring (simple to use and inexpensive).
Once have that data, then run your sequences through the LOR Power Utility (choose from menu at http://www.t2lights.com ) which will then graph the power used for each step of your sequence. You can then see how your load is distributed on each half of the controller, and you can even group various controller banks together ("groups") based on how you have them plugged in. For example, if you 2 controllers plugged into a single outlet, you could "group" them together and see what is the total load on that outlet throughout the sequence. So helps make sure you aren't overloading the outlet (circuit) or the controller.

FYI, Kill-a-watt's are always $20.99 shipped at www.meritline.com and sometimes go on sale down to $16.99.


Example of simple output from Power Utility:

[PaulXmas]

During testing I had everything running on ONE 15 amp circuit.

During the show I used three 15 amp circuits.

I have about 10,000 mini and about the same number LED.

I did plug in one of each type of string into my tester (simalar to the killawatt) and wrote down everything. With this information I was able to balance everything.

I like how you say " i doubt that I will ever have more than 8."

I bet you will have 8 next year! :]

[Robert Opper]

Depending if you have heat sinks or not can greatly change the amount of load per channel. I'm using the CTB-16D controller with heat sinks. These controllers can handle 20 amps per side (8 channels) for of a total of 40 amps for all 16 channels. Each channel can handle up to 8 amps each. But keep in mind that is with heat sinks in place. Otherwise it's only 2 amps per channel. I'm an electrician and stongly suggest doing the load calculations. Don't make the mistake of loading up the channels over 8 amps. This can burnout the channel but not trip the fuss mounted on the board. If your not familiar were to look if this happens, you'll be pulling out your hair...our worse! Scrappin your display!:shock:

Here is an easy formula to help figure out the load (amps) per channel.Use this formula if you know the watts. I= P / E

Use this formula if you know the amps. P=ExI

P= Power - in watts

E = Volts - your typical house outlet @120volts

I = Amps - this is the amount of current flow

8 amps = 960 watts per channel @ 120volts. Using the 960watts as your maximum target per channel.

Knowing what is connected to each channel is the key and makes it easy. It may seem like a big task but really isn't. It will save you headaches and money if you burn up equipment. The packaging or light string should have a tag on it stating the current in amps OR the watts for that string. Incadescent light strings with 100 bulbs generally draw about 1.2 amps or 100 watts. But may differ, so read the contents. Flood lights or the like should have a watt number marked on them.

Keep in mind that the total of ALL 8 channels on a side cannot add up to more than the rated fuse plugged into that side. Once you know the load of each controller just add them up. For every 20 amps you will need a circuit. It's highly suggested you don't take it to the limit and max out the current limits. It will leave room for expansion and you will have less stress on the equipment.

[john southeast iowa]

Whenever you add additional outlets per electrical codes they must be able to carry the load both in wire and breaker size. Wiring multiple outlets to handle minimal loads for a few weeks at Christmas time is a dangerous gamble. Let's say your son's car battery needed a charge and he hooked it to fast charge and then goes off with a friend for a while....is that a fire truck's siren I'm hearing? Alway better to be safe than........sorry!

[jeffandnicole]

I will say I have blown a few LOR fuses when I first started using the equipment several years ago. Not being an electrician, I didn't know a quarter of the stuff most people on here are familiar with. Plus, my display has quite a number of blowmolds that I was using 60 watt light bulbs in, which quickly drives the # of amps up!!!

After I realized my problems, I created a spreadsheet to calculate watts and amps and to convert one to the other (I'm an accountant - once I learned how to determine and calculate that stuff, the spreadsheet was easy!). I use that spreadsheet every year when I build and revise my display. I also removed the 60 watt bulbs and go with 40 watts max in any of the blowmolds...even then I use 25 watt bulbs in the majority of them.

The other problem relates more closely to the OP's issue - the total amperage for the house. My whole display is about 70 amps (yeah...no LEDs yet; I have enough light strings I haven't used yet that I decided to hold off on LEDs until I need to start replacing my current lighting). I solve this by never having the entire display on at one time. Not really a major issue since different blowmolds go with different songs. I also have 7 Christmas trees, each with 3 strings of 4 different colors. I don't have a single song where all 84 strands of lights are on at the same time, mostly because it just wouldn't look good!