k6ccc Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Saturday evening was opening night. Had a bunch of neighbors and friends over. All my changes in Zara worked perfectly! 1900 rolled around and the radio in my pocket was making sounds, but the yard speakers had shut off - argh! About 30 seconds later the speakers came on. On the next song, the same thing happened again! Ended up pulling my truck into the next driveway to get enough audio. Today I spent several hours trying to figure out what was going on. Finally found that the channel that controls the amps was included in each of the musical sequences (turned off). That one channel is in a background sequence that controls the amps. So a background sequence (turned on), and each musical sequence (turned off) were sending conflicting commands - oops! Tonight, all is running correctly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaynee Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 We got all our stuff set up but I clearly did NOT purchase enough SPT-1 wire - we ran out before the windows were even done. I ordered another 500 ft of it, but in the meantime in order to get things installed and at least turned on, my husband bought about 8-10 extension cords (which were thankfully on sale at Lowes). So we have enough to turn most of the the lights ON, but not enough for the window frames to be on, or for all the pieces to get to the LOR controller - so no show until that new wire comes in (hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday). But at least everything is up and working properly. I attempted to take several pictures, but it's really something that doesn't translate well into pictures because it is best seen close up due to all the lighted animals. But I'm very pleased with the setup and even MORE pleased that now that we have the extra circuit breakers, we have everything divided between four breakers (instead of just 2), and my kill-o-watt measured that the most AMPS any breaker had was only 7! SO HAPPY about that. We still have two of the new breakers we can "grow into" as well as increasing equipment on each breaker already in use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted November 30, 2015 Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 I relocated my ELL to the one megatree, closer and its happy now. I'm fighting issues with the supposedly weatherproof lightstrips from China. Sure learned a lesson there. I've been repairing them, resealing and still having problems with them only, due to the heavy rains. Its been raining since startup on Thanksgiving night and I'm still having issues. I was going to replace one yesterday but the rain wouldn't stop but then last night, that one started working and another started having problems. Still sprinkling outside this morning but the sun is expected back again tomorrow. Yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilM0nkey Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I got all of mine done, up and running last night only to remember I forgot one of my favorite sequences for this year. But the tour crowds start coming through tonight!!!!So excited for my first full year on the tacky light tour!!! They invited me a few weeks in last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMurray Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 We got all our stuff set up but I clearly did NOT purchase enough SPT-1 wire - we ran out before the windows were even done. I ordered another 500 ft of it, but in the meantime in order to get things installed and at least turned on, my husband bought about 8-10 extension cords (which were thankfully on sale at Lowes). So we have enough to turn most of the the lights ON, but not enough for the window frames to be on, or for all the pieces to get to the LOR controller - so no show until that new wire comes in (hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday). But at least everything is up and working properly.I ordered 2,000 feet of SPT cord for this year and have maybe 200 feet left over. A good place for outdoor extension cords is the swap meet. I go several times a year. This year I picked up about 400 feet of 12 gauge for 20 bucks. I cut them to the sizes I wanted and added new end plugs. I've been using them since Thanksgiving. No issues so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilM0nkey Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I gave in and starting cutting up my dead incan strings to make extension cords out of them. Why in the world didn't I do that sooner? I love them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcha Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Up and running smoothly. Knock on wood. Nothing is better than watching a car pull up and seeing 3 little heads pressed to the car window trying to get the best view! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cdanna77 Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 This is my 2nd year. I'm up and running. A few kinks to work out. But sat night had a car parked out front doors open radio blasting 3 girls dancing in the street. Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMurray Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 This is my 2nd year. I'm up and running. A few kinks to work out. But sat night had a car parked out front doors open radio blasting 3 girls dancing in the street. Lol.Lol. Me too. A few cars were parked. They were dancing and singing along having a good time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulXmas Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I tested things on Sat night and had a few issues. Ran last night and 1/2 the lights were off errrrrrr After a bit of troubleshooting one of the new pixel controllers is not sending anything out... Monkeyed it so I am able to have all the lights on. Fixed most of the sequences. Still a few things to do... Sooooo far behind this year, thank God the weather has been mild. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1983ss454 Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Been up and running for 2 nights, the only issue I had was a bad pixel at the top of my pixel tree 4 pixels from the top before opening night. Pulled it down and soldered in a new one, been running great since Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebuechner Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I've been up and running since Thanksgiving night. I had everything installed and tested early so I can fix any problems. The night before Thanksgiving I ran a full scale test and did a little tweaking. I had one dumb RGB ribbon fail. I never saw this before but somewhere in the ribbon it was feeding power back and forth between red and green with some resistance. When I put Power to the red I would get the green coming on slightly and vice versa. I put power in between the red and the green lines to blow out whatever was back feeding the voltage that would fix it for one night. Since then I installed a new ribbon and all's good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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