Jeffrey681 Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Hi Guys this is my first post so please go gentle.I am having a little difficulty getting my head around how the controllers operate and would welcome some advice. The controllers I have ordered are CTB 16K DWHS kits.My first set up will be 5 mini trees using 3/4 different colour strings of 100 leds per mini tree, each tree will have 3/4 pairs of wires hanging loose at the base from each string, does each of these pairs take up one channel each and if so each tree needs 3/4 channels each, I hope this is not the case because my 5 mini tree display will take up all off my 16 channels, with shipping and customs in the UK it will be expensive.I am sure I read somewhere that you can put a number of strings on one channel, if that’s the case then one channel per tree is my target, but how is this wired up so as to add various sequences to each tree using the 3/4 strings?.Sorry for such a basic request but there’s a lot to learn and I need to understand the basics before I move onto the next step.I would welcome a basic wiring diagram and plenty of guidence, I also have access to lots of CAT 5 cable and would this help?Regards Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmpros Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Welcome aboard Jeff! The simple answer to your question is for each colour is a channel. If you have 3 colours per a tree and want a different tree to come on at different times that would take 15 channels. You might want to have each colour a channel but have all 5 trees linked together this only using 3 channels. Now you have time in the off season to play with any variations to best match your layout. Good luck! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james campbell Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Welcome aboard Jeff! The simple answer to your question is for each colour is a channel. If you have 3 colours per a tree and want a different tree to come on at different times that would take 15 channels. You might want to have each colour a channel but have all 5 trees linked together this only using 3 channels. Now you have time in the off season to play with any variations to best match your layout. Good luck!very good idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premier Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 very good ideavery good ideaHi Guys this is my first post so please go gentle.I am having a little difficulty getting my head around how the controllers operate and would welcome some advice. The controllers I have ordered are CTB 16K DWHS kits.My first set up will be 5 mini trees using 3/4 different colour strings of 100 leds per mini tree, each tree will have 3/4 pairs of wires hanging loose at the base from each string, does each of these pairs take up one channel each and if so each tree needs 3/4 channels each, I hope this is not the case because my 5 mini tree display will take up all off my 16 channels, with shipping and customs in the UK it will be expensive.I am sure I read somewhere that you can put a number of strings on one channel, if that’s the case then one channel per tree is my target, but how is this wired up so as to add various sequences to each tree using the 3/4 strings?.Sorry for such a basic request but there’s a lot to learn and I need to understand the basics before I move onto the next step.I would welcome a basic wiring diagram and plenty of guidence, I also have access to lots of CAT 5 cable and would this help?Regards JeffHi Guys this is my first post so please go gentle.I am having a little difficulty getting my head around how the controllers operate and would welcome some advice. The controllers I have ordered are CTB 16K DWHS kits.My first set up will be 5 mini trees using 3/4 different colour strings of 100 leds per mini tree, each tree will have 3/4 pairs of wires hanging loose at the base from each string, does each of these pairs take up one channel each and if so each tree needs 3/4 channels each, I hope this is not the case because my 5 mini tree display will take up all off my 16 channels, with shipping and customs in the UK it will be expensive.I am sure I read somewhere that you can put a number of strings on one channel, if that’s the case then one channel per tree is my target, but how is this wired up so as to add various sequences to each tree using the 3/4 strings?.Sorry for such a basic request but there’s a lot to learn and I need to understand the basics before I move onto the next step.I would welcome a basic wiring diagram and plenty of guidence, I also have access to lots of CAT 5 cable and would this help?Regards JeffJeff:I am a complete Newbie as well, just started myself. What I did was download the software, took a picture of the area I wanted to decorate. Loaded the picture up in the Visualizer then started drawing where I wanted strings of lights, trees, bush nets, Icicle lights, and if I wanted color changes to draw another string in a different color over the first and so on. etc. I assigned a seperate channel for each string. This gave me the count of how many controllers I would need if I could afford to do everything seperately. The I started to figure out where to trim down, which strings would pair up well together, thus removing the seperate channels and combining them until I got the total channel count down to the number of controlllers I felt I could comfortably sequence and afford my first time out. I started with a couple of hundred and narrowed it down to just 36, by removing some strings and color changes all together I got the count down to where I could do the show with three controllers. So I then had to do the math with the number of strings, types of lights on each, total electrical draw on each, etc and had to make a few cuts to ensure I wan't going to overload the capacity of the circuits and wound up with a design that was balanced and fit on just 32 channels. It definately took some time, but it got me more familiar with the software, and a better beginning design that is quaranteed to wow the neighbors but more importantly won't trip my circuit breakers! Once the design was in place then I could move on to sequencing. I did a few different practice ones and ran them through the Visualizer just so I could see that the effects looked as great as I imagined. Once this was all done I re-assigned and labeled all the channels, and exported the set up. Now when I sequence I just import the set up and all my channels are there, nice and color coded so it even makes the sequencing go faster.Hope this helps, from one Newbie to another, best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey681 Posted January 13, 2013 Author Share Posted January 13, 2013 Welcome aboard Jeff! The simple answer to your question is for each colour is a channel. If you have 3 colours per a tree and want a different tree to come on at different times that would take 15 channels. You might want to have each colour a channel but have all 5 trees linked together this only using 3 channels. Now you have time in the off season to play with any variations to best match your layout. Good luck!Thanks, that very simple statement 'each colour is a channel, works for me.Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey681 Posted January 13, 2013 Author Share Posted January 13, 2013 Jeff:I am a complete Newbie as well, just started myself. What I did was download the software, took a picture of the area I wanted to decorate. Loaded the picture up in the Visualizer then started drawing where I wanted strings of lights, trees, bush nets, Icicle lights, and if I wanted color changes to draw another string in a different color over the first and so on. etc. I assigned a seperate channel for each string. This gave me the count of how many controllers I would need if I could afford to do everything seperately. The I started to figure out where to trim down, which strings would pair up well together, thus removing the seperate channels and combining them until I got the total channel count down to the number of controlllers I felt I could comfortably sequence and afford my first time out. I started with a couple of hundred and narrowed it down to just 36, by removing some strings and color changes all together I got the count down to where I could do the show with three controllers. So I then had to do the math with the number of strings, types of lights on each, total electrical draw on each, etc and had to make a few cuts to ensure I wan't going to overload the capacity of the circuits and wound up with a design that was balanced and fit on just 32 channels. It definately took some time, but it got me more familiar with the software, and a better beginning design that is quaranteed to wow the neighbors but more importantly won't trip my circuit breakers! Once the design was in place then I could move on to sequencing. I did a few different practice ones and ran them through the Visualizer just so I could see that the effects looked as great as I imagined. Once this was all done I re-assigned and labeled all the channels, and exported the set up. Now when I sequence I just import the set up and all my channels are there, nice and color coded so it even makes the sequencing go faster.Hope this helps, from one Newbie to another, best of luck!Again some great advice, and thanks a lot. jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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