Rope Light for Singing Faces

[funkymzk]

Oh and that reminds me; Cracker if you are successful at finding decent rope led are you moving them to DC or will you keep them on your AC controllers? You're mostly DC now except for the firesticks and faces correct? Just curious..

[funkymzk]

Jerry wrote:

The folks at 1000bulbs are great to work with, and the prices are reasonable. You could give them a call ,bet they could help you out. Jerry

Thanks Jerry. I'll call them tomorrow. Have talked to a bunch of stores so far, but not them. Definatley like a needle in a haystack!

[Jerry]

YEP,,, "should have gone AC" much less of a pain. That's just my op. I run two faces per controller + some house lights with no problems.
Don't forget you'll need extra lengths I case of a blowout. It will happen with all the bends. Jerry

[caniac]

Jerry wrote:

The folks at 1000bulbs are great to work with, and the prices are reasonable. You could give them a call ,bet they could help you out. Jerry

I had nothing but problems with those folks, not very helpful and not much help fixing an issue that was both parties fault. Had a customer support person say "sucks being you" and hang up.

[Dennis Cherry]

Jeff Millard wrote:

caniac wrote:

Had a customer support person say "sucks being you" and hang up.

That in and of itself should be enough for the entire lighting community to avoid their products. "The customer is always right!" along with all the other cliches apply here.

I had a common web host provider manipulate my desire to drop them, to the point of not bowing to my repeated requests to have the accounts closed. At one point they indicated there was no further billing, nor was there an open balance. 3 Months later a collection agency contacted me for an outstanding debt I had no previous knowledge of.

Every time I see their commercials on TV, or hear someone discussing them here I want to scream. Sticking together as a community against poor customer service or behavior such as the phone conversation you suffered is the most effective way to handle it.

I'd be willing to go as far as ordering from another vendor, then calling the bad one to tell them I went with their competitor because of the way you an online aquaintance was treated on the phone.

Jeff

Did you make a complaint to the BBB?

[CLD Kevin]

funkymzk wrote:

Oh and that reminds me; Cracker if you are successful at finding decent rope led are you moving them to DC or will you keep them on your AC controllers? You're mostly DC now except for the firesticks and faces correct? Just curious..

Only the faces and firesticks are incans are AC...everything else DC. Plan on changing those out this year. I still may use 120V rope light...but LED, so AC controllers may stay. Still testing.



Dennis Cherry wrote:

Did you make a complaint to the BBB?

BBB cant do anything other than put a “bad” check next to the business name.

I filed a complaint against Minionsweb for not owning up to the warranty on a few LED floods. I have an email from Mionionsweb stating it would be covered under warranty and issued me a RA number. I paid to have them ship back and never heard from them again. I’ve email and called several times and they did not return any of them. So I filed a complaint with the BBB. They called and emailed them and also never received a response. In the end, BBB basically told me sorry, we tried...and that’s it. So I chalked it up as a $100 loss and moved on. I posted this here last year to warn anyone wants to do business with them (gave me a reason to post it again ).

Kevin

[k6ccc]

funkymzk wrote:

K6ccc thanks for the clarification on the bulbs1000 rope light. Wasnt sure if what i read was 3 1/4 feet or inches. So that's good news. Any info on how it fades?

It fades just fine. I had bought that light rope before I planned on controlling it with LOR, so I had not considered dimming it when I bought it. So shortly after getting my first DC controller, I hooked up a section and it dimmed just fine. I see you commented in a later message that the did not dim. From my testing, they fade very well.

So far the only thing I have tried to dim and found it totally undimable is a couple of LED Malibu lights. Those went full intensity at about 3%. That is not going to be a problem for me as where I am going to use those will be as safety lighting on 2 brick columns so runing them full on is not a problem. In fact I will be powering them with digital outputs on a ServoDog, so full on is all they will ever see.

[Greg Young]

Cracker wrote:

funkymzk wrote:

Oh and that reminds me; Cracker if you are successful at finding decent rope led are you moving them to DC or will you keep them on your AC controllers? You're mostly DC now except for the firesticks and faces correct? Just curious..

Only the faces and firesticks are incans are AC...everything else DC. Plan on changing those out this year. I still may use 120V rope light...but LED, so AC controllers may stay. Still testing.



Dennis Cherry wrote:

Did you make a complaint to the BBB?

BBB cant do anything other than put a “bad” check next to the business name.

I filed a complaint against Minionsweb for not owning up to the warranty on a few LED floods. I have an email from Mionionsweb stating it would be covered under warranty and issued me a RA number. I paid to have them ship back and never heard from them again. I’ve email and called several times and they did not return any of them. So I filed a complaint with the BBB. They called and emailed them and also never received a response. In the end, BBB basically told me sorry, we tried...and that’s it. So I chalked it up as a $100 loss and moved on. I posted this here last year to warn anyone wants to do business with them (gave me a reason to post it again ).

Kevin

Kevin:
My LED floods from Minion's web all worked, but the glass covers of the spots detached spontaneously during the first, and in some cases 2nd season. The ones that fell on the snow were fine, 2 others broke on impact. I had spare lexan (polycarbonate) laying around so I fabricated 2 new covers. No LED failures.
I contacted Corey who told me China had a sealant issue, so I sealed them myself. I ordered 13, and have to date sealed 11. I am waiting fo the other 2 to drop.
I did run into another issue with supplies I had ordered from Corey not being delivered.
I was told he had moved and needed to get time to get to his old location to pick up the supplies. Finally after 4 months I told him I wanted a refund.
That took more time, and it was not until I told him I was sending a note to the NJ AG's office that I got the refund.
I agree, the BBB does not seem to matter much anymore.
It was sad it took that kind of action on my part to get a response.
he is another example of folks who start their businesses off fine, but then something changes and customer support goes down the tube. You can swap the names (Corey, Travis, etc) - the story is the same.
Greg

[funkymzk]

k6ccc wrote:

funkymzk wrote:

K6ccc thanks for the clarification on the bulbs1000 rope light. Wasnt sure if what i read was 3 1/4 feet or inches. So that's good news. Any info on how it fades?

It fades just fine.  I had bought that light rope before I planned on controlling it with LOR, so I had not considered dimming it when I bought it.  So shortly after getting my first DC controller, I hooked up a section and it dimmed just fine.  I see you commented in a later message that the did not dim.  From my testing, they fade very well.

So far the only thing I have tried to dim and found it totally undimable is a couple of LED Malibu lights.  Those went full intensity at about 3%.  That is not going to be a problem for me as where I am going to use those will be as safety lighting on 2 brick columns so runing them full on is not a problem.  In fact I will be powering them with digital outputs on a ServoDog, so full on is all they will ever see.

Thanks Jim
That's good news on the dimming. Since it stated on their site it didn't dim, i knew it would be hit or miss. Again, being new to this, i try to reseasrch as much as i can before making a purchase. I had read somewhere that if you dim an led rope that wasn't meant to be dimmed, it seriously shortens it's life. But, I would rather take the word of people with real world experience like yourself. My wife always makes fun of me that i research stuff to death. She's probably right!

After reading Kevins thread on the importance of fading with mouth movements, i wanted to make sure that whatever i purchased would. At this point i'm leaning towards going incan this year. The led stuff is expensive and I know i'll have to probably buy two rolls. One to build the three faces and one for burnouts.

I ordered two AC residential controllers on Sunday. I had planned on adding the AC controllers later in the year anyway. I had hoped to get the faces going DC first. On the plus side I got my RGB dumb strips on Saturday morning. I was going to run them DMX thru an ENTTEC, but figured i'd put the DC controller to use. I ordered four 5 meter strips. My roof line is exatly 48' and the sides of the house are 8' so that worked out perfectly. That right there will use up one of my DC controlers. Next year I'll outline the windows as well. The setup i understand but need to see how to control them in the software. Off to another thread to figure out how that works!

I'm thinking since i'm still a noob, i'll just run the faces off the AC controllers for now with incans since it's cheap and there is enough real world testing from people on the forums. I want to see what kind of experience i'll have. I saw some stuff that's almost 7 watts a foot and i'm thinking that will probably be bright enough. I live in a ranch so all the faces will be eye level anyway.

Another bonus is that we purcahsed a LOT of led strings last year, so im curious to see how they work with the AC controllers.

So now i have 2 AC and 2 DC controllers plus the ENTTEC.
Have a pretty good idea of what i want to do this year. I'll keep building props, working on my sequences and if i have time maybe do some stuff with dmx.

I see why you guys start so early in the year. Clocks ticking already, plus my wife said show me something soon with the money you've spent before i choke you! Ahh the joy of being married to an accountant.

I do want to thank everyone for their input. Helped a bunch. Feel free to keep adding to this thread on all your experiences with the LED's. Maybe next year I'll make the switch after i have a little more experience under my belt!

Should still be a fun Halloween and Christmas!

Paul~

[Jerry]

Sounds like you have a great plan. Good luck. Jerry

[dito]

sorry, but why go DC vs AC? it just seems easier to me to stick with AC (in the US anyway)...

[funkymzk]

Oct 29th 2012

Here's a few close ups of my faces.

The big ones Jack (6x6) The smaller one is Esmeralda (4.5x4.5)

110V Incan Rope Light 3/8 - Pearl White - Action Lighting

Next year I'm shooting for five!

I know, I know... it was done, but my daughter had been begging me to do this, so I thought I'd share. Knocked this out the Friday before Halloween. All sequencing down by yours truly. Sorry for the so-so video. Time for a better camera! Hope you enjoy!

http://youtu.be/9Lml_KfWEdY