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would LOR be less expensive if lower power used?


medman2000

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It's snowing and blowing and I'm sitting in here watching to see if my lights can hold on one more week in these 40mph gusts we get in rural Minnesota.... which is the perfect time to start thinking about next year and beyond ;)

I'm more so just curious in terms of LOR expense to create their controllers... I really do feel like the price is good for the product and the awesome customer service... but I'm also wondering how much of the cost of the product is related to the total amps the controllers can handle, compared to the rest of the magic inside the LOR box.

Would it be cheaper to manufacture a controller if it was meant to only handle 1 amp per channel instead of up to 8? Or no more than 1 amp per whole controller (like for exclusively LED or something). Just wondering.

Anyway - great product and looking forward to the sale!

medman

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Gotcha - Maybe I change my efforts into convincing LOR to have a "Buy 9, your 10th is free" punch card or something. I'm sitting at 320 channels right now, I want to double for next year but not sure how I can launder the money without my wife finding out. Oh well!

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medman2000 wrote:

I'm sitting at 320 channels right now, I want to double for next year but not sure how I can launder the money without my wife finding out. Oh well!



Double the 320 channels you already have? :shock: You must be kidding!

I suspect that the wife already knows this, and she is planning to bury you in the back yard, and will use your controllers for an animated tomb marker :)
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Richard Hamilton wrote:

medman2000 wrote:
I'm sitting at 320 channels right now, I want to double for next year but not sure how I can launder the money without my wife finding out. Oh well!



Double the 320 channels you already have? :shock: You must be kidding!

I suspect that the wife already knows this, and she is planning to bury you in the back yard, and will use your controllers for an animated tomb marker :(



Hrm, that *could* explain the life insurance policy she gave me as a Christmas gift! I thought it was a bit odd.

Right now I have 10 trees as part of our landscaping, and each tree is divided into 1/8 sections - 4 going up the left and 4 going up the right, 8 channels of color and 8 channels of white. Led to some very cool effects this year. Next year I am trying to decide if I keep the 8 sections but add two more colors, or try to break each tree up into 16 or even 32 smaller sections (maybe 4 front right, 4 back right, 4 front left, 4 back left X 3 colors). But *man* these channels add up in a hurry :)
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I'd think that using the DC board (http://store.lightorama.com/cmdedcca.html) would save you some serious cash if you're willing to wire directly to the LEDs, bypassing AC/DC converters and such.

I'm trying to figure out if taking this approach will lull my wife (a Purdue EE grad) into doing some of the work for me without noticing I bought twice as many as she thought I would.

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Not sure direct wiring is within my skillset :shock: - but your reply did get me wondering about some of the other products... since I am only adding LED from this point forward, I probably don't need the heat sinks - making some of the other DIY products possible.

Well, I guess that would only save $10 per controller as I look at the options.

Hrm.

At least I have a few months to think about it :(

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Bjorn74 wrote:

I'd think that using the DC board (http://store.lightorama.com/cmdedcca.html) would save you some serious cash if you're willing to wire directly to the LEDs, bypassing AC/DC converters and such.


Have you seen any other boards or threads talking about this? Sound like a great idea.
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I stumbled on a topic at PC that led me to this:
http://www.crazylightlady.us/LEDStrobes.html

She uses another brand, but the process should be the same. It might actually be less expensive overall than buying curtain strobes for a whole strand. But then, we've got all the soldering equipment and my wife's often used the technicians in her lab to fix household problems, like when the cat chews through the headphone cords.

She's buying individual LEDs but I would think that you could buy LED strands and undo the converters to make them work. That would be a lot less work, I'd think.

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