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Controllers Sale


rcolving

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Do the 16 channel Residential Controllers ever go on sale at a reduced price?  I'd like to order 2 more controllers for next year.  Also can anyone give me a ballpark figure what they paid to have additional power circuits installed to support their controllers?

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there will probably be a spring sale and a summer sale. Pretty decent savings.

 

 

I was quoted $100 per circuit and ended up paying a little less than $90 per

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Do the 16 channel Residential Controllers ever go on sale at a reduced price?  I'd like to order 2 more controllers for next year.  Also can anyone give me a ballpark figure what they paid to have additional power circuits installed to support their controllers?

 

Spend the additional money you would spend on adding power circuits on buying LED lights instead. You are likely going to make the switch to LEDs eventually anyway, and then you will wonder why you wasted your money on adding circuits (since your entire show will run off 1 or 2 with LEDs).   Plus then you get the added benefits of having LEDs as well.

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Hey Thanks, Surfing4Dough!  I actually have just purchase 58 Strings of LED's and am keeping my eye open for more.  I was concerned that the controllers themselves were what was pulling all the power. With the 32 channels I have now I had to balance the power out throughout different circuits in my house to avoid tripping the circuti breakers. If all 16 channels per controller are LED's can you piggy back two controllers on one circuit?

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Hey Thanks, Surfing4Dough!  I actually have just purchase 58 Strings of LED's and am keeping my eye open for more.  I was concerned that the controllers themselves were what was pulling all the power. With the 32 channels I have now I had to balance the power out throughout different circuits in my house to avoid tripping the circuti breakers. If all 16 channels per controller are LED's can you piggy back two controllers on one circuit?

 

Could probably piggy back about 10 controllers on one circuit if using all LEDs.  The boards themselves require very little juice.  So the limits are purely based on what you put on each channel...which means a boatload of LEDs.  If planning to still use some incandescents, make sure to use a Kill-a-Watt meter to make sure you don't exceed limits.  Don't forget that only what is sequenced to be turned on at the same time counts towards this limit.  If you are going to be cutting it close, use the LOR Power Utility to make sure none of your sequences exceed the limit.

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What Surfing4Dough said makes a lot of sense, since I allready went down that road...........When I first started I should have done more reading the first thing I did was have an additional electrical panel installed approx. $1200 purchased 2 controllers with incans and the controllers couldn't handle it so I purchased 4 more.  Then I finally got smart and  got LED's were 95% LED now  and were running 14 controllers on 2 circuits almost 75,000 lights

 

I sure wish I could return that electrical panel that money could but a ton of LED's  :lol:

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I had several additional dedicated circuits and outlets put on my house when I had incandescents. then made the move to almost all LED, needed very few, other than for convenience of placement, but now jumping into RGB lights, I'm back to using alot of circuits,  didn't realize that would be the case, but when you start to add it all up, it can eat the outlets up in a hurry.

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 I ran 2 ctb16pc's and 10,000+ LED's and my total amp draw at full load was 4 amps, and barely over 1 amp playing a sequence. Save your money. LED is the way to go, but personally I have not found LED string lights online for a decent price yet. Hit the 50% off sales or order them from the china suppliers. 

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I am big on isolating circuits.  All of my 18 controllers are fed by independent feeds on CGFI plugs.  I do this to minimize the effects to my show should I have a Ground Fault or Arc Fault.  Event though I have switched to LED's and I understand that the current demand is minimal, when water does get into a plug and it does cause the CGFI to trip I am only effecting a small portion of my display and show.  The greatest cost is not wire, outlets or conduit, but on the CGFI Plugs.  I could have replaced the feed breaker with a CGFI but then when it trips everything stops.  Just what I do and a little food for thought. Even though you are running LED which is 5vdc-12vdc, remember that LOR 16XX is delivering 110vac in the USA and if you ground that light string you are going to get nailed.  Be safe and enjoy the hobby.

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I've done both....added circuits to the house and started buying LED. 

 

The price you're going to pay for adding capacity to your panel depends on a lot of factors.  How much capacity do you already have?  How far do the wires need to be run?  Where is the panel, etc...?  My panel has plenty of capacity, but it's in the basement and I had our handyman (I'm not a good electrician) run 3 new 15amp circuits for me.  He had a long way to run them.  I had him do other work too, so it was all lumped into one bill, but I'm guessing the cost for the 3 circuits was $450-$550.  I had him do that in summer 2013.  My display this past season was almost all incan.  It was roughly 20,000 lights and 2 controllers.  A lot of the lights were static, so they were always on.  Plus I had a few blow ups, spotlights, etc...  I used up every bit of my 3 new circuits, running them at 12amps each.  That was in addition to the other circuits I had already set aside to use mostly for the display, such as the circuit in my garage which gets little use anyway.  My total draw for the display was somewhere around 50amps, maybe a bit more.

 

After I took everything down, my wife and I talked about this very topic....either pay to add more circuits for next year, or just spend that same money starting to convert to LED.  We decided to start converting.  So I snapped up every LED I could get my hands on in the after Christmas sales.  I wasn't picky...C9, mini, C7, white, red, multi, whatever.   I took it.  Picked up something like 20,000 LED lights.  Not going to ditch all my incans for 2014, but will start the transition.  I should never need to add another circuit to my house again, and will continue to add LED lights.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Best online deal ive found is here http://www.holiday-light-express.com/in_stock_lights.php

 

awesome light quality amd great customer service. you have until feb 28th. they will have another sale in the summer time but this is the best price right now.

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