CCR would you do it again?

[Nick Harpold]

I am thinking about adding 20-25 CCR's to my 2012 display but I have been reading on several forums about problems with power supply's, water, bad ribbons etc.

So I thought I would ask the members who already have them, if you had it to do over again would you still buy these?

It will be a sizable investment and I just don't want to be disappointed. I realize that LOR has great customer service, and I have not been disappointed with any other LOR items before. But with some of the posts I have read. I'm a little hesitant to take the plunge.

Any suggestions/comments are welcome.

[ItsMeBobO]

CCRs are the by FAR the best part of my display. Four arches and four matrix boxes I made by cutting.


But I will say they are fragile and pixels can go out. They do much better as a fixed mount or rarely bent fixture. I have had to replace two of my eight. (third season in use) One was warranty and was swapped asap with no questions asked. The other had a dead pixel I thought I could repair myself and failed.

My advice is to just verify all colors of each pixel of each ribbon before and after mounting.

[Dennis Cherry]

yurevn wrote:

I am thinking about adding 20-25 CCR's to my 2012 display but I have been reading on several forums about problems with power supply's, water, bad ribbons etc. So I thought I would ask the members who already have them, if you had it to do over again would you still buy these? It will be a sizable investment and I just don't want to be disappointed. I realize that LOR has great customer service, and I have not been disappointed with any other LOR items before. But with some of the posts I have read. I'm a little hesitant to take the plunge. Any suggestions/comments are welcome.

Absolutely. I have 4 CCR Circles, for 2 years and are working just great. The controllers have worked without any problems, they are in the yard next to each circle in individual plastic boxes on the groundand stayed powered 24/7 rain or not.

Will probably add more in 2012.

2010 setup




Attached files

[Nick Harpold]

Thanks for the information.

I guess I should also mention that I live in Nebraska. It is usually cold and windy in the winter.With heavy wet snow. We can get winds up to 70 mph and temps below zero in November.

This is what concerns me with them being fragile, and the power supply's not being very reliable in the cold.

[mikeosf]

Hi All,

I'm running 15 CCRs this year. (11 last) So far I've lost 1 pixel and 3 power packs.

Not really a bad loss ratio.

Had quite a few cold wet raining snowing freezing rain days!!

As long as you can keep it dry everything should work well.


Yes I would do it again in a second, they are awesome!

Take Care
M.

[Big Mur]

My first 2 CCR's this year. I added them as spiral tree trunk elements and they are the hit of this year's show (all LED with 48 Channel LOR).

I got these pretty much last minute with zero programming done. It was a steep learning curve to program 3 songs from scratch (the 48 channels was ok as this is year 2) - but still to go from zero to 3 songs starting December 1 was ambitious. Short summary - the Superstar program is very powerful and extremely useful. It was a bit of work to get my head around it but in the end, I programmed the last song with 48 channels and 2 CCR's with S3 and Superstar for my final song in a long evening while glancing at the the TV with the family (headphones on).

CCR's worked awesome out of the box and our family and friends agree that RGB bulb strings and RGB floods along with more CCR's are "must do" for next year.

[PMC]

I got my 1st CCR in 2009, loved it, in 2010 I purchased 11 more, and in 2011 purchased 2 more, and in 2012 I'm going CCB

[steve synek]

I don't have any regrets on using them. I am now running 14 in my show. I do agree they are a bit fragile. I will be looking to add a few more. I did have to learn about adding networks in order expand my display. Here in Cleveland, we get a variety of weather and I have never had an issue with rain, snow, or temperature. My problems have been 2 bad strings. One I caused and one I did not. Both issues were address promptly by LOR and that is why I buy from this company. First class customer service.

Steve

[BrownOut]

Everyone that comes by our house talks about the CCRs. I am getting more for next year.

-Logan

[gmacw]

yurevn wrote:

Thanks for the information.

I guess I should also mention that I live in Nebraska. It is usually cold and windy in the winter.With heavy wet snow. We can get winds up to 70 mph and temps below zero in November.

This is what concerns me with them being fragile, and the power supply's not being very reliable in the cold.

I live in Massachusetts off the North River so the weather can get quite nasty (gust hitting 60-65 mph). I built the 12 CCR tree that Brian created & used some of his sequences for the CCRs. I can say after four years with the lights, the CCRs made it my best year ever. Traffic increased ten fold! tons of great comments & they look awesome!

That being said, they are definitely fragile & two strips & one power supply went on them within a few days. However, the LOR team came to the rescue & replaced everything within a couple of days. They are by far the best company out there in my opinion.

I definitely recommend getting them, you may want to start off with only a few & see if they live to your expectations! I'd also recommend getting spare to be safe. Even though LOR replaced within a few days, it killed me as hundreds of people were watching the show & two strings were out. I be buying more with a couple of spares for next year!

[WayneKremer]

So would you build the tree in the same fashion or would you still use rope?

[gmacw]

WayneKremer wrote:

So would you build the tree in the same fashion or would you still use rope?

Wayne, that's a good question. The wind blows them around alot but they surprisingly survive pretty good. When I first saw them blowing around I started thinking that next year I would use some 1/2" EMT which would give more strength but now I'm thinking of staying with the rope as it's been four weeks & it still look good.

[WayneKremer]

gmacw, did you have any high winds? I would be freaking out seeing my CCR's out in 70+ mph winds. EMT may be a good idea, but I wonder how it would handle a little stress...especially if EMT is meant to be bent. Thx!

[bestone]

Jeff Millard,

Would like to chat with you offline if you have time about your pixel ribbons. Tried to send a PM without luck.

Brad

[friskybri]

Jeff turned his pm off. You will have to find him outside of LOR.

[gmacw]

WayneKremer wrote:

gmacw, did you have any high winds? I would be freaking out seeing my CCR's out in 70+ mph winds. EMT may be a good idea, but I wonder how it would handle a little stress...especially if EMT is meant to be bent. Thx!

Hey Wayne,

It's been warmer here this year than normal so all the storms have brought lots of rain & with it wind. I live right off the north river so there's always some mild wind however, during the bad weather the average wind has been 20-30 mph with gust up to 40-50. One storm we had gust hitting 70 mph! I tell you even in the 30 mph winds, those CCRs on the rope were dancing! Yes, I was stressing but they kept working! I did unfortunately have a total of five strings die on me, but it wasn't from the wind. It was water damage! Two went in the first two days right after a whopping rain storm! I mentioned the bad CCRs to LOR & they sent new ones out within two days (great support). The other three went a day or so after Christmas, two completely & the other just three pixels would stay on constantly. Since it was near the end I just disconnected the two that were gone & left the one with three pixels running with the other good ones.

We had beautiful weather on New Years Day so I took down the CCR tree. I found water had rolled down the ribbons & got in at the bottom where the cap goes over the ribbons. Of the five some had close to an inch of water. I notice the IC chips had a corrosive crust on them (kinda like when your batteries in a flashlight get moisture).

This spring I'm gonna build the EMT tree & set it up in the backyard without the CCRs & see how it does with the elements. I do know that I will buy a spare CCR as a back up for next year. Even though people watching the show probably didn't even know there were missing spaces within the tree, It was killing me! I'm also going to put some commercial grade outdoor silicone on the ribbon where the cap & ribbon meet as an added pre-caution.

[WilliamS]

Jeff Millard wrote:

I'm basing my entire 2012 display on pixel based ribbons and nodes. I have 3 CCRs made into Arches. I'm adding a little more than 30 meters of Pixel ribbon and another 30 meters of RGB ribbon all 5050 LEDs, 30 per meter. Along with 8 meters of 60 LEDs per meter RGB glued back to back to light spiral trees. All but the Arches will be DMX.

Would I buy CCRs again? Yes. Will I? That depends on how they compare to the DMX devices I've ordered for next year. If they're similar in the way they look, change color and dim... I'll probably be buying DMX ribbons from now on. The price for the items I've ordered, well... if you double it... it's somewhere between the sale price and the regular price of a CCR.

Jeff

Whoa, so no LED strings, no Incans, no C7's. Thats an impressive undertaking. Im jumping as you are but not on that scale. Id love to see how you setup the spiral trees as no matter how hard I look at it I wouldnt be able see the whole strip.

[Steven]

GoofyGuy wrote:

Id love to see how you setup the spiral trees as no matter how hard I look at it I wouldnt be able see the whole strip.

Last year (2011) I built a spiral tree using 8 RGB ribbons. The "branches" were made of 1/8" (or was it 1/16"?) wire rope. When I wrapped the ribbons, I "twisted" them backwards so that the front of the ribbon faced the front of the display for the entire 360°.

Visibility was not a problem! I didn't like the sagging, but no one else minded.

I don't have pictures up yet, but here's one from a friend's mobile phone:

[dgrant]

Newbie here but need to ask. The CCR's from LOR aren't cheap in the slightest yet I've found strips on Amazon that look the same, same description and so on, for a whole lot less money but no fancy controller that the LOR CCR's come with. Has anyone tried this and if so, how did they work and what controllers worked for you?

[WilliamS]

dgrant wrote:

Newbie here but need to ask. The CCR's from LOR aren't cheap in the slightest yet I've found strips on Amazon that look the same, same description and so on, for a whole lot less money but no fancy controller that the LOR CCR's come with. Has anyone tried this and if so, how did they work and what controllers worked for you?

This is up to you. Are there solutions that can mimic a CCR for a lower price, Yes. If your cheaper CCR breaks is there anyone that can help you fix it, likely not. That is the risk you run, do you save money to get a product similar that you have to assemble yourself, or spend a few more bucks and get something that if it fails you have someone to call that will help you out. As well the CCR has the advantage of programming with SuperStar as well Ive said it hundereds of times, you can not beat Light O Rama help desk. I dont care what anyone says.