Gemmy shooting star iclicles

[pyromill]

Not really sure where to ask to maybe get attention of someone that has these and uses them. But Gemmy Shooting star icicles I just picked up one set.. more sets to go anyone using these... hacking them?? or maybe even just dimming shimmer etc.. curious what happens without having a controller available at the moment but these in hand.. ok well hanging in the living room with the wife's approval what a great wife.. I looked on Google a bit.. explored the string a touch and have come up with each icicle has it's own chip deciding what to do.. and a step down transformer as the pack.. 4 wires come out.. only 2 to each icicle with feed through power. Would be awesome to control somehow!!! .. anyone with use/knowledge??

[JBullard]

The "step down transformer" is probably a switching power supply. Anything other the 100% on or 100% off would possibly destroy it.

As for cutting the pack off, then possibly using a LOR DC card, depending on what kind of chip is in the icicle would determine if this is even possible.

[Eric Knutson]

I have a couple of these strings which I have powered through the LOR controller. They only work full on or full off. But they do look really good and I have received questions about them each year.

[Galen]

I bought a bunch of these after Christmas 2009 and used them last year along my roofline. I used them either on or off (no fading or effects). I love the look of them. The first "drip" is all at the same time no matter how many strings are connected and then they become more random the longer they are on. This can be used to great advantage depending on your music (its quite impressive to have your whole roofline "drip" at the same time). I had these running for a few hours after the show completed and I thought it offered a nice calming effect.

I had no problems with them last year. They are heavy and thus a bit more of a challenge to handle when installing them, especially if you have multiple strings connected prior to installation.

[bdeditch]

I had a bit of a problem with some of them last year, water likes to leak into the control box on each string and mostly in from the top where the 2 wires go into the cap of the icicle.

[jjdurrant]

^^ same here.. was not impressed

[bdeditch]

jjdurrant wrote:

^^ same here.. was not impressed

I ending up attaching them underneath the soffit this year. I had to clean a lot of them out from the water, and drill drainage holes in them.

[Ken Benedict]

Without modifying them, try sending it a low intensity value (4-10) to see if you can get randomization without showing the audience anything. Do this about 10 seconds before you do a full on intensity. Play around with it.

As for modifying them, there's probably someone on Youtube that has reverse engineered them. Someone did this for the GE C9 LED light string that has them coming on in programmed patterns, using only 3-4 wires. I suggested they build a dmx interface, but haven't seen one yet. Maybe they don't know what they could make with a 25 bulb CCB type of programmable light for under $50 each. Oh well. Waiting for the LOR version now.

[JBullard]

Ken Benedict wrote:

Someone did this for the GE C9 LED light string that has them coming on in programmed patterns, using only 3-4 wires. I suggested they build a dmx interface, but haven't seen one yet. Maybe they don't know what they could make with a 25 bulb CCB type of programmable light for under $50 each. Oh well. Waiting for the LOR version now.

Not the person on you tube, but these pixel controllers will control the GE pixels.

You can buy them today.

http://www.sandevices.com/index.html