Tindivall Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Hello from Fort Worth, Texas where it is Dec 3rd and 80 degrees outside I am a newbie in every aspect of the word when it comes to lighting displays... This is my first year in a home of my own and first year decorating for Halloween / Christmas. While I had always known about lighting displays such as the ones Light O Rama allows you to do, I was not aware how it was done until a week or so ago. While I realize I am a little late to the game for this year I am planning getting my feet wet in 2013. My only snag is that my wife is not into the whole Griswald lighting experience like I am, so therefore I am limited at this time to going all out just for Halloween.That all being said, I have some questions and wanted to see if someone could point me in the right direction.I am looking for more feedback / suggestions from the experienced more than anything:Talking Faces:1) Construction: I have seen several different videos / ways of doing this, pegboard, pvc with chicken wire, purchasing from wowlights.com, purchasing the just the wire frame (wireframedlites.com) and running lights myself. The wowlights seems a bit overpriced at $650, the wiredframe are nice at $90 but that could be because they are smaller (47" x 40").... Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? I am leaning away from the pegboard because I don't like the idea/thought of having a huge pegboard blocking a window during the day.2) Lighting: Rope Light vs RGB Basic Strip. I like the idea of the Stip lighting because can cut to whatever size needed without having to electrical tape off areas not want shown. Also like the idea of being able to change colors using the RGB strip. However my concern is the bending of the strip to make the face, where as rope light can obviously bend no problem. Roofline:For cost purpose I would imagin I will start with standard LED lights, eventually one day rolling into the Cosmic Color Ribbon (CCR). 1) Excess length? Can you cut the CCR like you would a RGB basic strip? Would you want to at a cost of $250?2) From my research so far I know that the control box and power supply are not weatherproof but that you can buy weatherproof housing for to enclose it in. If I am running the CCR along the roofline, where would I place the housing box with the control box and powersupply? I am assuming the data cable from the control box to Ribbon is not super long so the housing would need to be near by... or is there a way to make an entension of some kind?Thank you for your time in reading and answering any or all of the above questions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amtrak115 Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Hello from Gainesville, VA. I've been lurking a while, and decided to take the plunge this year. I have 2 controllers as well as an ENTTEC Open DMX interface. I'm working on basic sequences and basic light "dancing". My big project for this season was a North Pole Mailbox with an RGB globe on top. That should go up in the next day or so. This will complement the North Pole I constructed last year, which I'm adding an RGB Globe replacing the incandescent light on that one. I'm also constructing two RGB 7 Segment Arches. I'll post pictures in the near term so all can critique my work.laterBarry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tindivall Posted December 3, 2012 Author Share Posted December 3, 2012 Howdy Barry, not sure if you meant to post as a reply to my post or you were meaning to be a post of your own... either way.. welcome to the forums.... sounds like you are already a bit ahead of me as I have not even made a LOR purchase yet (will be doing so next year 2013).As far as for my post, I have looked more into the RGB Rope Light as an option for the face but this is what I have found:http://www.ledropelightsandmore.com/...m-cut-dmx.htmlSeems I could get it to work using DMX but if I am reading that right it is 4 channel per rope light? Figure 7 Rope Lights to a face (1 for tops of eyes to blink, 1 for bottom of eyes - always on, 1 for O, 1 for top of mouth, 1 for bottom, 1 for closing/talking, and 1 for in-between top/bottom/talking)... that would be 7*4 = 28 channels just for the face?Maybe just stick with 1 color rope lights? hehe unless someone can tell me that I am wrong about what I am looking at / talking about... or has a better solution Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 4, 2012 Share Posted December 4, 2012 (edited) Talking Faces: While WOWLights makes it easy to get them up, they're extremely overpriced for what it costs to build. One roll of orange incand ropelight cost $150 (shipped), roll of cattlefence from HD, $26, pvc for framing, $14. Made 4 faces (one large, three smaller). Ropelight faces, wile nothing is "standard", are generally 7 segments.. 2 for eyes (upper/lower lids), and 5 mouth segments for each vowel sound. Actually one segment is an upper lip and except for O, the other segments connect to the upper lip to complete the vowel. Upper lip is lit by itself for a face at rest..Ropelight can not "be cut to whatever size you need", it can only be cut at each segment length, be it 12", 18" or 36" depends on the mfgr. Same with LED ropelight (much more expensive). I would not buy any face kits, but thats just me. There are too many posts how to make them yourself to justify paying almost $100 per wireframe. RGB strips cannot be bent. Its flat, if you try to bend it, it bows, does not lay flat. And can only be cut in abt 3" segments.As for roofline for RGB/CCR.. I bought 10rolls of 5meter 5050 RGB strips to ziptie to pvc and mount under the eaves to wash the house with color. was $159 shipped from China, took 6 days. over 160' of strips, abt $1/foot. CCRs, $250/16'.. do the math.. yes, CCRs allow chasing but no way for me to justify that cost to the family.enclosures, CG-1000/1500, btwn $9-$11/ea Available from several of our vendors on here.Barry, If you have something to add, welcome, if you are asking how to do something else, open your own thread. Edited December 4, 2012 by TJ Hvasta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tindivall Posted December 4, 2012 Author Share Posted December 4, 2012 Thanks for the response TJ (Capt Jack)... I appreciate you taking the time to share that info.... based of your response and additional research, it seems building the faces and using standard rope light (no rgb) is the way to go... The RGB rope lights with 4 connectors seems a bit much and the RGB Strip as you said don't bend the way I would need them to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 5, 2012 Share Posted December 5, 2012 RGB for the roofline (ziptie to pvc, mount at edge of shingles), or under eaves is its best use.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcPierre Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 Hello to all, I am Marc Pierre From Florida. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 Welcome to the madness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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