Upgrading 1602W from 30amp to 40amp capacity (20 amp/side)

[njwatkins1]

I am looking to upgrade my LOR1602W to a total of 40amp capacity. It is my understanding that the board is built for 40, but brought down to 30 for safety. Under that premise, what would I need to do to upgrade to 40? From what I can see it would be a simple fuse change and pigtail (male inlet wires) change to 20amp rated pigtails. Is this correct?

Thanks,

[-klb-]

I believe the face plate fuse holders are only rated 15A, unless things have changed. Same for the leads between them and the boards. Last time I saw a thread on converting, the recommendation was to not use the face plate switch or fuse holders. But remove the factory inlet wiring, and run the new 12ga cords to the neutral, and hot in contacts on the board (NOT the hot jumper!!!) Then install 20A fuses in the fuse clips on the board.

[njwatkins1]

I think I'll play it safe and send an email to Dan and Co. I'll post what I receive back.

On another note:

Hopefully they'll still be selling 1602W's as I need 1 more (and yes I'm upgrading that one and 4 more for 5 40 amp boxes and 11 30 amp boxes).

It's Amazing this hobby...I've went from a 40amp display in 2009 (static), to 230 amps (160 channels) in 2010, and this year we;ll be pulling 465 amps (if I can get the controllers (I need 6!) (256 Channels Total). All I can say is WOW! I LOVE IT!

Thanks For Your Help!

Nick

[-klb-]

Look for an improved version, but fully compatible.

I have 5 trees in a park that are going from 120A each last year to about 100 total this year. Got to love LED.

[James Shelby]

-klb- wrote:

Look for an improved version, but fully compatible.

I have 5 trees in a park that are going from 120A each last year to about 100 total this year. Got to love LED.

This was going to be my commit. I have a bridge that went from 360 amps to 30 amps, your right got to love those LED's.

[b_Regal78]

njwatkins1 wrote:

and this year we;ll be pulling 465 amps (if I can get the controllers (I need 6!) (256 Channels Total)

Is this a residential display? A display that draws over 400 amps is quite impressive. I have never seen a house that had over 400 amps of power available, and most houses have either 100 or 200 amp service.

[njwatkins1]

B_Regal78, THANKS! Well the Electrician and the Power Company are going to love me. I'm putting in (next week in fact) a 600 Amp Service on my garage. This service is completely separate from the house service (200 Amp) and for what I lose in the garage (heat, lighting, computer, etc.) I make up for by drawing 40 amps off the house in 2 separate outdoor staked outlets. All that brings my total available Amperage to 600 Amps. I'll have the ability to turn every one of the 100,520 (estimated) bulbs we'll have this year. The glory of it all is that 94% of our display is Incan. and I plan to keep it that way (at least above 90 ) until LEDS become cheaper than incans or they outlow incans, lol. With what we'll have in bulbs we should be pulling somewhere around 475 Amps.

Nick

[b_Regal78]

Outstanding!

Hmmmmmmm, I think I might be your long lost brother

[njwatkins1]

At Some point I've going to have to make an avatar for these forums as well as PC (I think we've chatted there a few times as well) that says "LONG LIVE THE INCAN", lol.

[CKSedg]

njwatkins1 wrote:

B_Regal78, THANKS! Well the Electrician and the Power Company are going to love me. I'm putting in (next week in fact) a 600 Amp Service on my garage. This service is completely separate from the house service (200 Amp) and for what I lose in the garage (heat, lighting, computer, etc.) I make up for by drawing 40 amps off the house in 2 separate outdoor staked outlets. All that brings my total available Amperage to 600 Amps. I'll have the ability to turn every one of the 100,520 (estimated) bulbs we'll have this year. The glory of it all is that 94% of our display is Incan. and I plan to keep it that way (at least above 90 ) until LEDS become cheaper than incans or they outlow incans, lol. With what we'll have in bulbs we should be pulling somewhere around 475 Amps.

Nick

Couldn't you buy a TON of LEDs for the price of putting in the extra 400 amp service?

[b_Regal78]

njwatkins1 wrote:

I think we've chatted there a few times as well

We have. I've twisted your horns a couple of times about your screen name. With the "NJ" as the 1st 2 characters, I used to think you lived in NJ...

[njwatkins1]

CKSedg wrote:

njwatkins1 wrote:

B_Regal78, THANKS! Well the Electrician and the Power Company are going to love me. I'm putting in (next week in fact) a 600 Amp Service on my garage. This service is completely separate from the house service (200 Amp) and for what I lose in the garage (heat, lighting, computer, etc.) I make up for by drawing 40 amps off the house in 2 separate outdoor staked outlets. All that brings my total available Amperage to 600 Amps. I'll have the ability to turn every one of the 100,520 (estimated) bulbs we'll have this year. The glory of it all is that 94% of our display is Incan. and I plan to keep it that way (at least above 90 ) until LEDS become cheaper than incans or they outlow incans, lol. With what we'll have in bulbs we should be pulling somewhere around 475 Amps.

Nick

Couldn't you buy a TON of LEDs for the price of putting in the extra 400 amp service?

Under normal circumstances Yes. However I am getting the Load Center and the wiring needed for free. The only investment I will be making is the Electrician payment and the GFCI outlet's themselves.

Nick

[b_Regal78]

njwatkins1 wrote:

CKSedg wrote:

njwatkins1 wrote:

B_Regal78, THANKS! Well the Electrician and the Power Company are going to love me. I'm putting in (next week in fact) a 600 Amp Service on my garage. This service is completely separate from the house service (200 Amp) and for what I lose in the garage (heat, lighting, computer, etc.) I make up for by drawing 40 amps off the house in 2 separate outdoor staked outlets. All that brings my total available Amperage to 600 Amps. I'll have the ability to turn every one of the 100,520 (estimated) bulbs we'll have this year. The glory of it all is that 94% of our display is Incan. and I plan to keep it that way (at least above 90 ) until LEDS become cheaper than incans or they outlow incans, lol. With what we'll have in bulbs we should be pulling somewhere around 475 Amps.

Nick

Couldn't you buy a TON of LEDs for the price of putting in the extra 400 amp service?

Under normal circumstances Yes. However I am getting the Load Center and the wiring needed for free. The only investment I will be making is the Electrician payment and the GFCI outlet's themselves.

Nick

Yup - sure of it now. I am your long lost brother...

[James Shelby]

I had to look at LED's really hard 4 years ago. Rebuild a 20 year old electrical system or LED's. If the display keep growing then another electrical upgrade would be in the future. My trees had become so large it was taking more and more lights to make them look good. What was 12amps a few years ago is now 29amps on one tree. So LED's had become the cheapest option for the future of the display. My electric bill dropped by 62% the first year that is a huge savings.

[njwatkins1]

Well I'm not going to get into the LED vs Incan argument. LEDs do have their upside, but for me they are not traditional christmas lights...Hence my phrasing "Long Live the Incan". I do plan to use about 5,000 LEDS this year (5% of the display) because I'll be maxing out the LOR boxes. I'm sure eventually I'll make the switch, but I want the capability for power later. With 600 Amps I can pretty much light anything I want. Add LEDs to that mix and when we move our display to a larger home in the next 2 years or so, we'll need the 600 amps. The home we're currently looking at purchasing is roughly 6,000 sq ft. That is 3 Times the current sq footage of our home. I've already completed a rough design (yes the Christmas Light Show has an impact on what house we choose) of the home, and I'm looking at 250-300K lights, first year. 2nd or 3rd year we'd be up to Half a Million Lights. So going to 600 amp now (we're making it easily removable so we can take it with us) will save me headache in the future.

[James Shelby]

Ya that's been the biggest complaint I've had is the LED's don't look like traditional christmas lights.

[lleibeck]

I went from 200 amp to 400 amp service at a cost of around $600 including permit.
Our power company has to provide the needed service at no installation fee. I only had to pay for a service panel.

The cost of switching out to LEDs was far mor costly than the upgrade.
As I buy new lights I am buying LEDs

Lee

[James Shelby]

That's what I had to weight out too but being on a collage campus with limited funds for the long haul LED's was a good fit. Our trees keep getting bigger and that's taking more and more lights to keep them looking good so do we keep upgrading the electric or decrease the load by going LED? By adding color changing LED's on the tops and multi's on the trunks I have dropped the load on a one half mile road by 62%,not bad.