Gemmy Lightshow LED C9 Strings...Fade-able?

[sound_designer]

Just getting ready to buy the residential kit but wanted to make sure if these lights would do basic functions like fade and on/off? I've put two 48 count strings together and can lock a color and maintain sync as one long string, just want to make sure that the built in "Gemmy lightshow" feature won't get in the way of control from the LOR controller. Won't have any RGB needs for these lights and understand that that, isn't an out of box comparability feature. Thanks in advance!

[Orville]

Are you removing the Gemmy LightShow Controller or leaving it attached?   If you're not removing it, all you would be able to do is OFF and ON, no special lighting effects would be possible through the Gemmy controller.   I don't have any RGB stuff, but do have some lights that have their own control box for effects, the controller on the lights can be set for any specific or random effects and I can use these lights on my CTB16PC controller as long as I use full on or full off, any other commands may cause damage to the controller and stop the lights from working.   I have several Gemmy Lightshow products and also use them with full ON and full OFF commands via LOR CTB16PC, bit can not do anything else with them unless I were to remove the controller and use an LOR DC board to control the LED items, the CTB16PC could control incandescents once the control box would be removed and male plugs put on each strand.  But the Gemmy RGB Lightshow stuff are DC, so you'd have to hack the lights and use a DC board, possibly some other hardware to control those color changing type LED bulbs with LOR.   At least that is my understanding from reading a lot of the RGB threads aroun the forum.

 

If I'm mistaken, I'm sure someone will chime in here with a way to do it, if it's possible.

[sound_designer]

Orville, thanks for the quick reply.  To answer your question, if I stay with the Gemmy Lightshow set, I'd keep the built-in controller intact and just expect the on/off functionality but I think I'm going to go a different route.  So, the path that got me to LOR is this.

 

1.  This year I bought the Gemmy Lightshow lights (early in the season before Lowes ran out) to "up my game" for the Christmas season.  However, after going through the 12 preset patterns that they provide with their built-in controller, I just wasn't getting what I wanted and though it looked more "carnival-like" than Christmas.  So...I began searching for a different way to control lights.

 

2.  Multiple google searches led me here and I started investigating the LOR products.  I downloaded the demo software and couldn't believe how closely it resembles MIDI sequencing software.  I like this!  

 

3.  So, for this year, I think I'll return the $200 worth of Gemmy lights and just go ahead and buy the LOR Residential pack.  I'll use the abundance of lights I already have and use this year as a good testing ground.

 

4.  I should be able to get a few songs sequenced to use this Christmas.  I just started learning the LOR Visualizer and that is a great tool for sure!

 

Again, thanks for your help and info thus far.

[Orville]

I agree they do look very carnival-like, that's why most folks that use them with LOR DC controllers and other hardware hack them and remove the controller, this way they have full RGB capability with them.  

 

You might want to consider keeping them if you're ever going to get into RGB lighting and DC Controllers.   

 

There is a lot of info here around the forums and on the internet on hacking the Gemmy and GE RGB light strings.   

 

So you'd be a little ahead of the game having those to experiment with, when or if you ever opted to go the RGB route.