Purchasing Controller from whom advice needed

[dgrant]

Comparing prices for the LOR controllers, I see that the LOR site itself is higher than that of other sites, selling the same products. In this case. Wow Christmas lights vs LOR. Has anyone done business with them and if so, were they reliable? Other suggestions for even less expensive? I'm preparing to order controllers for the first time and will probably go with the residential starter set, 16 channels, fully assembled and full software license.

[De Trommelslager]

I just looked, and the prices are either the same or a bit higher at WL. ??? Are you comparing apples to apples?

[dgrant]

I did a basic comparison of the starter system from both with the same items in the carts. LOR was higher but maybe I did something wrong.

[dgrant]

Ahh...I was just loading in the indivudal components rather than using the LOR starter package.

[dgrant]

One additional question: The Cat5 cables LOR sells, are they wired for RS485 communication or are they just standard Cat5 network cables? There should be a very large difference.

[Don]

dgrant wrote:

One additional question: The Cat5 cables LOR sells, are they wired for RS485 communication or are they just standard Cat5 network cables? There should be a very large difference.

Standard CAT5 cables.

What difference do you speak of?

[dgrant]

A Cat5 cable is wired differently than that of RS485 communications

[Don]

Well, the Light-O-Rama system uses standard CAT5 cables.

No need to worry about RS485 cable.

[dgrant]

I just now ordered a 32 channel starter system but messed up on the order and only did the basic license. Oh well. Back on the cables, I'm quite familiar with RS232/RS485 and Cat5 network cables and none are the same which is why I asked. Thanks

[Don]

Visit www.lightorama.com/support and put in a ticket explaining what happened.

LOR will work with you to get the software you wanted to get.

[Lester Stone]

Here is a link for inexpensive cat-5 cable
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10208

[dgrant]

Thanks, I can build my own cables if I chose too but would rather just buy them. The larger issue was what wiring format they were using as Cat 5 and RS485 are two different animals.

[Paul Roberson]

Welcome to the fun/nightmare fellow Arkansan.

Standard CAT 5 cable is all you need. No cross over cable though.

LOR uses pin 3,4,5 and 6.

4 is A (+)

5 is B (-)

6 is ground

3 is 9v + (powers LOR accessories)

[Guest wbottomley]

dgrant wrote:

Thanks, I can build my own cables if I chose too but would rather just buy them. The larger issue was what wiring format they were using as Cat 5 and RS485 are two different animals.

If you make a straight through cable, it will work just fine.

TCP/IP and RS485 are two different animals but there's nothing that says you can't use Cat5 cable. You need to worry about other issues besides this one. Because it's been working fine since 2003 - when LOR was established.

[caniac]

dgrant wrote:

Comparing prices for the LOR controllers, I see that the LOR site itself is higher than that of other sites, selling the same products. In this case. Wow Christmas lights vs LOR. Has anyone done business with them and if so, were they reliable? Other suggestions for even less expensive? I'm preparing to order controllers for the first time and will probably go with the residential starter set, 16 channels, fully assembled and full software license.

I have, have bought all my controllers and a few sequences from them. When I first started this quest Mike answered all 1,000 questions I had in a professional and courteous manner. Started with their 32 channel mega tree starter pack and grew it from there.

[JSelph]

I've made purchases from WL, though not controllers, and the products shipped quickly and with email confirmation. I had one product that went bad and they shipped another one overnight. Great service. No issues at all with them!

[dgrant]

Thanks everyone. I did order the 32 channel starter set from LOR and I'm going to need more of course. I was just entering into a spreadsheet what all I've got in lights and so on and I'm spending too much..lol. Just bought 84 more strings, mostly LED and that doesn't include what's on the house now nor incandecents that I didn't use but have. Too bad the controllers are RS485 as opposed to network based controllers. Seems it would be easier to do the IP Addresses on them and we could plug into a high speed switch/router.

[Don]

I can only imagine LOR's support load if they did go IP based.

1) What's a CIDR?
2) What's a vlan?
3) What do you mean by routing loop?

That's scary. I'll stop there.

[caniac]

Don wrote:

I can only imagine LOR's support load if they did go IP based.

1) What's a CIDR?
2) What's a vlan?
3) What do you mean by routing loop?

That's scary. I'll stop there.

not to mention from a simplicity stand point it is much easier to understand and explain Controller 1, 2, 3, 4, as opposed to controller 192.168.1.100, 120, 130, etc. and lets not forget all the subnet masking and calls to India when things don't work.

There really is not real benefit to the IP schema unless you wanted to access your LOR network remotely. I could be wrong but 95% of us are more hands on and fix it on site kind of guys.

[dgrant]

My thoughts are talking to the controllers via a network is much faster than going to RS485 but only if a high-speed network is used. Before I retired, now the year before last, we did super high speed data acquisition via lan based communications. We also had RS485 but that was way to slow for what we needed. Now whether this speed enhancement is needed for LOR controllers or not, I simply don't know till I receive the controllers and start working with them. Its very possible, RS485 is more than fast enough. Via software, you could easily program the IP addressing, just as easy as setting RS485 addressing and considering they are already using Cat5 network cabling.