If you were to start over from scratch what would you do differently?

[caniac]

MikeA wrote:

I am happy with my decision to NOT use LED's yet. I buy medium quality Phillips brand incon's and have been happy so far. This has allowed me to grow my display and channel count. If I would have gone all LED's I would have about 1/4 the size. Looks like in about 2 years I will start to make the switch.

safe assumption you have ample power and keep the load on the controllers to a minimum?

[MikeA]

caniac wrote:

MikeA wrote:

I am happy with my decision to NOT use LED's yet. I buy medium quality Phillips brand incon's and have been happy so far. This has allowed me to grow my display and channel count. If I would have gone all LED's I would have about 1/4 the size. Looks like in about 2 years I will start to make the switch.

safe assumption you have ample power and keep the load on the controllers to a minimum?

next year I will have 30,000 lights. That's 300 strings at .16 amps per string. That's only 48 amps spread fairly evenly over 10 controllers. I have not even come close to pushing the limit.

[columbus27]

MikeA wrote:

I am happy with my decision to NOT use LED's yet. I buy medium quality Phillips brand incon's and have been happy so far. This has allowed me to grow my display and channel count. If I would have gone all LED's I would have about 1/4 the size. Looks like in about 2 years I will start to make the switch.

I like the old school look of incandescents. I buy the cheap $2 ones from lowes and then recycle them every two years. Now I wish I would have walked around my neighborhood and studied the different types of LEDs before I purchased the white ones and put them on my tree. I have them dimmed down to 20%.

I only use about 3000 lights, but I try to give the illusion of large.

[WilliamS]

This is my first year and the Forums lead me in the right direction. I have to say if I had to backup and do it over again all I would add is more channels.

I used SPT cord and vampires, I built and sequenced months ago, the controllers I assembled myself months ago and tested them. I have to say the forum made it a perfect start.

[jim6918]

Might sound like bragging, but there is not much I would have done differently. I made the decision to go to LOR in early January 2009, spent 6 months studying and reading threads here. Before I spent a nickel on lights or controllers, I upgraded to a dedicated 100 amp load center for the controllers, and placed it close to where I was going to put the controllers. Started first year with 80 channels and upgraded a few each year to 128. Glad I didn’t spend a lot on LED’s the first year as I feel the quality and colors have improved quite a bit in just 3 years. I spent hours looking at videos on-line to get ideas that would fit on my house (Thanks Richard H.) Reviewed each song with the family to get opinions, and begged as many sequences from people as I could get my hands on, even if it was just for a snippet of something I liked; arches or mini trees for example. In many cases I only used the beat track and timings some of the old-timers here are just great at timings. I kept the publicity to an absolute minimum. I am not saying this is mandatory, but felt it was best for my neighbor situation. Word traveled quickly enough.



I guess the one thing I should have done earlier was to come up with a good substitute for the crappy Hobby Lobby Luminarias is had been suing for years to line my driveway. Now if I can find a good substitute for the mini lights in my two large trees, I will be set. I have all the controllers I need and have spare channels for some expansion. Now if my knees will hold out a few more years I am set.

[Dave Pursel]

Definately would go with LOR controllers even though they aren't perfect. I wish I would have had my 100amp service in the garage three years ago. At least my garage is Electric car ready. Bought quite a few extension cords that I wouldn't have purchased today as I've switched to SPT2 cables and making my own which is very easy and can be tailored to length. I do use the SPT2 only for the channel runs. Not the power cords to the controllers. I've been swapping a lot of my C-9's for retrofit, dimmable LED's. I still use the RED incadescent C-9's as the LED's just aren't bright enough to suit my fancy. But the blue/green are very good I feel. I too wish I had more storage for all the wire, minitrees, lights, etc. There's a propencity to buy all your lights in one year. I just keep adding a little at a time. Oh another important thing is to plan for easy installation / deinstallation. I've attached a lot of my roof outline lights to 1x3 and just have to hook the boards to the hooks. I can have the entire roof line done in about an hour. DOCUMENT your installation so come next year you can put every thing back where you had it. Makes installation much faster. Assuming your not like me and make changes.

[zman]

WhitePlainsNY wrote:

I wish I had built all my extension cords from scratch and labelled them correctly.

Don't let this one go un-noticed. I would have never buy another extention cord for interconnect. Get good cords for your power grid, 14/3 - 12/3 depending on length, but decide on either SPT1 or SPT2 to make your cords. SPT2 makes you compatible with bought off the shelf lamp cords and comes in handy for custom harnesses.

Create standard lengths and yes, identify them. I use colors for different lengths.

This will save you storage room and hassles toting bins with miles of cords around. I also store my cords in rollable garbage cans that are marked by length. I have 4. They wheel around very easily.

[zman]

need to fix

[zman]

BBY2KS2K wrote:

I would start putting the lights up earlier. Especially here in the Pacific Northwest where the weather doesn't always cooperate. I refuse to climb on a wet roof. I didn't have my show running until Dec 1st. My goal was Thanksgiving weekend.

Jason, we need to talk.

[Steven]

Like many of you, I have no regrets for decisions made in the previous 4 years, but to the original question, if I were to start over from scratch, there are things I would do differently, but mostly because:
1) What I did in the past was a necessary learning experience; and
2) There are products available now that weren't available when I started.

For example,

1. In the past I bought LED strings with removable bulbs, because that were what was available. Those are now giving me problems because of corrosion and loose connections at the bulbs, so now I only buy sealed LED strings.
2. Last year I had blue, green, and white strings on the city tree. I have learned that you really need red in a Christmas display, so now my super strings are RGBW.
3. I'm very satisfied with my decision the 2nd year to run ABS conduit under the lawn, and under the front walk in the 3rd year. Next year I plan to run some on the west side. It make things much cleaner and keeps me from tripping over cables.
4. On my 3rd year I learned to install RJ45 strain relief connectors on the controllers, and to put a window to see the status LED.
5. If I had double-checked my sequences on my 2nd year, I wouldn't have burned out a transformer (for a low-voltage LED tree).
   

[mgrant8163]

You guys are awesome (and maybe a bit scary)!! I'm so glad that I found this forum.

I'm already thinking in my head of some of the unique structures in my front yard that I can have some fun with. For example, I have a 30' flag pole and a 2 1/2 story redwood play structure with three swings and two slides and a 5' high concrete fountain with a bottom bowl. This is going to be so much fun!! On the street side, I have 400' of white vinyl fence (if you include the pasture).

Ok, so you sold me on LEDs to start. I have power issues even before I start. I have one breaker that trips constantly that powers the main house garage (it has the extra refrigerator in it as well and the GFI for the masterbath...go figure). I'm not sure yet which circuit the front gate is on but I know that the exterior plugs in the front of the house are also included in the main house garage circuit.

Now that I'm going with LEDs, is there an ideal string length? How many can I put in line?

P.S. I also own a family business that does precast concrete fountains. I read on the LOR website that they also can do light shows, etc. with fountains. Can they also control multiple pumps and nozzles? OMG I'm in so much trouble here.

One more thing-I understand the benefits to making my own extension cords but no one has mentioned the wireless systems. Do they work well enough to spend the extra $$ or, since you already have a yard full of wires is it really a benefit?

[Steven]

mgrant8163 wrote:

no one has mentioned the wireless systems. Do they work well enough to spend the extra $$ or, since you already have a yard full of wires is it really a benefit?

If you're already running power cords, then including an extra Cat5 cable is the way to go. A wired connection has less to go wrong, and can ever go at a higher data rate. Also, you can't load new firmware to a controller over a wireless link.

On the other hand, there are places for wireless. My display includes houses across the street, and it was determined early that running a Cat5 cable across the street was a bad idea!

[columbus27]

I tapped into the dedicated 20 in the basement and garage. Also I changed my GFI's to better ones.