Power Question

[Ineedmorelights]

Hello!

I'm looking to upgrade to 32 channels from 16 last year but I want to make sure I'm not going to blow up a controller. I'm planning on running two ShowTime PC controllers. Last year I had about 15,000 lights, should have about 30,000 this year. Through extensive testing with a KillaWatt meter I ensured each section was only running about 7 amps in a 15 amp socket. I had both sections plugged into GFCI protectors at two different outlets. Assuming I add the additional lights to the new controller and plug each section of the new controller into two different GFCI plugins at two different outlets, four outlets total, will I have enough power to run both controllers without overloading the systems? Is there a better way to do this beyond installing a custom power outlet system? I just want to make sure I can plug each section into the the four closest outlets to run the show before I go crazy this year. Thanks for your help!

[Guest guest]

I ran 3 controllers on one outlet and 2 controllers on a seperate outlet last year. Both connected to GFCI's through triple tap extension cords to the controllers.

Never had any power issues or problems.

So I would think you would be safe using only two controllers (32 channels) on one circuit myself, but, depending on what type lighting you are using Incandescent or LED could possibly make a difference on that.

My display was a mix of both LED and Incandescents, mostly C7's bulbs and regular house lamp bulbs used in my blowmolds and 12 - 100 count strings of incandescents in my 4 coro arches, everything else was L.E.D. strings.

But I'd say do what you feel is best for your setup and requirements.

But I really think (my opinion), with only 2 controllers you should be fine on just a single dual outlet.

[ainsworth]

You are assuming that each one of your outlets is on it's own circuit. I doubt that is the case.

Do you have your circuit breakers labeled, or an electrical diagram of your house? If you do you can quickly determine what outlets share the same circuit.

If not, you need to determine which breakers control which outlets. Unfortunately this is not the only thing you need to determine. Now that you know which breakers control which outlets, you need to go to your main electrical box and determine how many amps are available to all of the outlet breakers.

I have a 15 amp breaker for the outlets in each room. However, all of those 15 amp breakers are fed by one 40 amp breaker at the main. That means that even though I have 4-15 amp breakers for 4 rooms I can only pull 40 amps of power total, not 60 (4*15) because that is all the main will allow.

[Surfing4Dough]

And don't forget to account for what other household items are on the same circuit you will be plugging controllers into. Unfortunately, some of our outlets share the same circuit that has outlets in the family room and living room of our house. Have to account for what is on those outlets as well. Also, you can make sure that you plug the 2 controller power cords into different circuits, so if you had each cord into a different 15A circuit, you could potentially have the full 30Amps available to use with that controller. As ainsworth indicated, you have to make sure you know which circuit each outlet is on, since they often will share the same circuit.

Another thing to remember is that your sequencing can control power issues as well. You can have beyond the max amount of lights (from a power standpoint) plugged into your controller, but make sure that at any given time you never have turned on more than the allowed max. So say you might have 50 amps of lights plugged into your controller, you can sequence to ensure that you will never have all 50A on at once, and could limit it to the 30A max (15A per side). Some follow a technique across the board. For example, Holdman uses red, green, and white lights on all items in his yard. He has said that he has a rule where he will never allow red and green be on at the same time on a particular item. That right there cuts out approximately 1/3rd of the power requirement.

As very useful tool to utilize with your Kill-a-watt is the LOR Power Utility. It is free and easy to use once you run through it the first time. You basically map out with your kill-a-watt how much power each channel uses (can estimate it if needing to before setup--but confirm once your display is set up). You then load your sequence and it will then create an graph for your entire sequence of how much power was required (for each 0.1 second of the song.) It will break it down by controller, per bank on the controller (ch1-8, ch9-16), and per house circuit (in case you have more then one controller on 1 circuit).
It can be found here:
http://www.t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html

This is a sample graph it creates. So you can see that at only a few points towards the end did this sequence require more than 15 amps for the controller. Now say this exceeded your circuit requirements, you could go to those points in the song and tweak the sequence to bring down the power requirement for that area (and then re-run the utility to ensure it was enough). Or you can reassign which bank of channels is used for certain items to spread out the power usage differently.

[brownjm74]

Ineedmorelights,

Here are a few of my thoughts, first if you could, update your profile so we know where your from .

I know where your coming from, I went from 16ch to 112ch last year and Im adding another 16ch for this year. Because of this I had to add a 100A sub-pannel with 10-20Amp GFCI outlets (see attached photo). The question you have to ask yourself "are you going to expand further than 32ch"? If so you are definitely going to be running into power problems unless you are 100% LED. You definitely need to do what others have suggested to find out what "separate breaker" GFCI circuits you have around your house. And I too am willing to bet that most, if not all, of them are on the same breaker. In light of all of this, if your using incandescent lights, you will probably need to install more "separate breaker GFCI" or install a sub-panel. I wrote up an "How to" on this and click here for more info and photos:

http://www.brownchristmaslightshow.com/electrical.html

I hope this helps and good luck!!


Attached files

[Surfing4Dough]

brownjm74 wrote:

Ineedmorelights,

Here are a few of my thoughts, first if you could, update your profile so we know where your from .

I know where your coming from, I went from 16ch to 112ch last year and Im adding another 16ch for this year. Because of this I had to add a 100A sub-pannel with 10-20Amp GFCI outlets (see attached photo). The question you have to ask yourself "are you going to expand further than 32ch"? If so you are definitely going to be running into power problems unless you are 100% LED. You definitely need to do what others have suggested to find out what "separate breaker" GFCI circuits you have around your house. And I too am willing to bet that most, if not all, of them are on the same breaker. In light of all of this, if your using incandescent lights, you will probably need to install more "separate breaker GFCI" or install a sub-panel. I wrote up an "How to" on this and click here for more info and photos:

http://www.brownchristmaslightshow.com/electrical.html

I hope this helps and good luck!!

I too ran some extra outlets just from some empty breakers in my existing circuit box, which was fairly inexpensive. But stopped short of doing anything else since I quickly realized that the money spent for any additional electrical expansion was better off spent on just getting LEDs (especially at after Xmas sales). $1000 upgrade of electrical system can buy quite a few LEDs. Because of this, I found that this past year at 77 channels required a lot less power capacity than my first year at 32 channels--could have even done without the extra outlets I ran. But obviously if you can do the electrical work yourself (safely), then that is probably an good option.

[CKSedg]

Surfing4Dough wrote:

brownjm74 wrote:

Ineedmorelights,

Here are a few of my thoughts, first if you could, update your profile so we know where your from .

I know where your coming from, I went from 16ch to 112ch last year and Im adding another 16ch for this year. Because of this I had to add a 100A sub-pannel with 10-20Amp GFCI outlets (see attached photo). The question you have to ask yourself "are you going to expand further than 32ch"? If so you are definitely going to be running into power problems unless you are 100% LED. You definitely need to do what others have suggested to find out what "separate breaker" GFCI circuits you have around your house. And I too am willing to bet that most, if not all, of them are on the same breaker. In light of all of this, if your using incandescent lights, you will probably need to install more "separate breaker GFCI" or install a sub-panel. I wrote up an "How to" on this and click here for more info and photos:

http://www.brownchristmaslightshow.com/electrical.html

I hope this helps and good luck!!

I too ran some extra outlets just from some empty breakers in my existing circuit box, which was fairly inexpensive. But stopped short of doing anything else since I quickly realized that the money spent for any additional electrical expansion was better off spent on just getting LEDs (especially at after Xmas sales). $1000 upgrade of electrical system can buy quite a few LEDs. Because of this, I found that this past year at 77 channels required a lot less power capacity than my first year at 32 channels--could have even done without the extra outlets I ran. But obviously if you can do the electrical work yourself (safely), then that is probably an good option.

You can alleviate a lot of power problems if you will simply use LED lights. Yes, they are more expensive, but saves a ton of money on power retrofits.

[ainsworth]

I think he is already using LEDs. 15,000 lights using 14 amps sounds like LEDs.

Could be wrong though.

[cmoore60]

Most likely he does not run totally LED. My mega tree has 9600 LED lights and when all on, only pulls about 3 amps.

Chuck

[Ineedmorelights]

No I wish I was using LED's. I'm not because of the cost and I am still new at this. I will phase them in overtime though. Another reason why I am not looking to modify the power supply is I am military, move around every few years, and am renting this home I am in now. I'll be looking to retire in a few years and when that glorious day comes I will have enough power for lights to land a 747! Sadly, until that day comes I need to work with what I have. I was able to do some critical thinking and I found a few independent circuits that I could use for the additional power. Considering I did so well with planning last year (thanks to all of you guys!) and the amount of lights I am adding this year I think it should work. I am at the point after this years display, I simply have no more room to put lights.

[Surfing4Dough]

Ineedmorelights wrote:

I am at the point after this years display, I simply have no more room to put lights.

I was there myself, which is when I started lucking out and getting clearance LEDs after Christmas. So make sure you plan to find some this year.