yellowstang73 Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 Hi, I'm new to LOR (just ordered my first 16 channel).I have aprox. 2 1/2 acres of front yard and have been adding stuff every year to my christmas decorations. I have lots of plywood cutouts with flood lights lighting them.My question is can I run my floodlights off a relay and fire the relay off one channel of the LOR? or possibly 2 relays and fire them with 2 channels on the LOR. Was thinking of maybe 20amp relays. I have 2-50 amp and 1-30 amp circuits dedicated for christmas lights now, and will put the LOR on the 30-amp. keep the floodlights on one of the 50-amp sides and use relays to trigger them with the LOR. Is any one else wired this way, or will it even work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimshady Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 Yes you can do this with some caveates. Dont dim or shimmer or twinkle your relays.dont gang returns in order to disable banks for relays (for use when you want the triacs to do what LOR designed them to do.I have picutres and I can describe in more detail what to avoid if you like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowstang73 Posted September 19, 2007 Author Share Posted September 19, 2007 Thanks for the quick reply. The deal is wife says we don't get rid of the christmas scenery that we already have. I agree with her on this as I have put a lot of labor and love into these cutouts. But the flood lights will detract from the effect I want to achieve with the LOR. I dug thru my old relays and found one that is rated 30 amps @ 110v ac it triggers with 12 dc. I dug around and found a 12v dc 1 amp power supply that works this relay fine. All I want to do with this is kill the floods at different times throughout the show. With this power supply only pulling 1 amp I should be able to run a couple of strings of lights with it, ie: when floods are off these mini lights will be on. I agree that it probably wouldn't be wise to fade, shimmer or flicker the relay and most times it will be steady off, with sometimes on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimshady Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 I used 110V ac relays but there's no reason you cant power a DC wall wort the same way. I put 16 DPDT AC relays in paralell with each LOR channel (triac). I knew that I would need to disable some of the relays so I could do normal LOR stuff. Unfortunatly, I decided to gang the returns in groups of four. This did not work as somehow, feedback from active triac channels would halfway trigger the relays that were not supposed to be able to come on. Long story short, you need 16 break switches to disable the 16 relays for use as normal triac LOR channels.Bottom line is that you can do what you want and once you have relays in there you can switch 100VAC or 12VDC or anything you want. I will use mine at halloween to trigger DC casket jumpers and that sort of thing.http://www.grimlabs.com/halloween/halloweenfiles/casketjumper/springmillhaunt2005.wmvHere's the LOR with relays:http://www.grimlabs.com/LOR/LOR16_&ACrelays_003.jpghere's more pics of the LOR relay board:http://www.grimlabs.com/LOR/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowstang73 Posted September 19, 2007 Author Share Posted September 19, 2007 Thanks Grimshady, Thats a nice setup! Casket jumper is really cool! Pretty much answers my question too. I'll only have 12 floods @100 watts = 10.1 amps and can reduce that to 8.2 if I drop to 75 watt bulbs, so I think it will work great. I'll have my relay wired and give it a try as soon as my LOR gets here. ( hopefully in time to play with it a little at Halloween). Thanks for the quick replies and the great info! YS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Shelby Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 Thanks Grimshady for the great info. I have a bunch of 25amp SSR's with (I think) 90-260 volt AC input trigger. I was going to use some multi cable I have to save on wire but I see you killed that because I was going to tie the returns together, such great infomation thanks, you saved me a ton of head aches. I would like to use the LOR to trigger the SSR's and then feed the other side with 20amp breakers. I'm looking at a big big big roof job with C9's, 5 rows going up the roof at 400 feet, and the longest run down by the gutters are around 600 feet. Four sides of this. Right now they just have them on only and would like some kind of control. I think it would be cool to chase the lights up the roof and around the roof too. What do you think, am I on the right track????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimshady Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 You'll have to try the SSR's to be sure they will work. Triacs normally need some current draw to operate correctly. LOR's seem to work pretty well with my relays but SSR's may be a different story. Try it before you commit large scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Shelby Posted September 22, 2007 Share Posted September 22, 2007 I have seen a single C9 added to the SSR to give it the load your talking abought. Thanks for the info. I'll start this project next year and I'll get back with you to let you know if it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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