caniac Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Working thru some ideas for props this year and am looking for suggestions. I will need four 8ft sections of RGB "ribbon", I am assuming that I can get 16ft sections and cut them and then add connectors to the two sections. Will also need two to four RGB floods. May also outline the house with RGB pixels but that may only happen if my time and budget allow. So my question is this, what would you recommend? why? is it budget friendly? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmith37064 Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 (edited) They do come in 16 foot sections so cutting them in half would be easy. In fact you can cut them every 3 inches. They have cut lines so you will know where to cut. They also have connectors already on each end. Depending on what you get may have waterproof ends or may not. You will just need to decide on what you want. Most are 12v so make sure you power supply is 12v as well. Smart pixels i think are 5v. So depending one what you are doing you may not even need connectors. i would not use the solderless plastic ones. I tried them all and the best is still a good wire solder from piece to piece. But budget friendly would be the cmb24d. You can get the rgb strips from Ebay for as low as $6. Make sure it's the 4 pin wire. You do not need their controller or power adapter. Just the strip. Ebay has cheap floods as well but i hear mixed stories on the quality. As for pixels... i am just now starting to look into it and cannot offer any real input. Edited February 4, 2016 by gsmith37064 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheski Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 Check Holiday Coro or Holiday Light Express, both have items on sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh28 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I'd save more money and make RGB floods with either the 2811 IC smart strips or simple, RGB 5050 strips. I did it to light my windows up this year and it worked pretty well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpm67ZXLNJA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 2 minutes ago, marsh28 said: I'd save more money and make RGB floods with either the 2811 IC smart strips or simple, RGB 5050 strips. I did it to light my windows up this year and it worked pretty well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpm67ZXLNJA where do i find them and what controller? looking strip because the item I will put it on has a curve to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmith37064 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I would like more information of your RGB floods as well. The video was neat... Can the flood cover the whole house or just the window? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbass101 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Here is a link to holiday coro floodlights. http://www.holidaycoro.com/RGB-Flood-Light-p/163.htm I just bought 2 of these kits. They are designed for DMX but you could by the lights and the coro board and then just wire them up to a LOR dc controller board, such as the CMB16D-QC. Heres the link to the LOR page: http://www1.lightorama.com/dc-low-voltage-boards/ As for the RBG strips I used the ones from holiday coro and I love them. They are extremely bright. I would recommend some kind of connectors between the controller and the lights. I didn't have that last year so I had to wire the lights on the roof. Defiantly adding waterproof connectors for next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh28 Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 IMO, the Holiday Coro floods, and other similar 10 Watt floods aren't all that great because they create major hot spots and don't do an effective wash job (thus why I created my own. Although I'm haven't perfected it yet, the light in my window consists of a 10 pixel section of a cut-up 2811 light strip and its controlled with a pixel controller ( I use a SanDevices e682). However, I'm still not satisfied with my light because the 2811 strips, like nearly ALL RGB pixels, has a very wide viewing angle (120 dg.) The big viewing angle creates hot spots and makes the light less directional. However, to fix this, I'm buying some clip on plastic pixel lens that Ray Wu sells. The lens are 30 dg and should help in making the spots more directional. Here's a link to the strip I cut up (It's a one meter section). pixel strip Don't be scared off by the shipping, the price listed is ALWAYS wrong and actually gets better when you buy more. The Pixel lens I'm looking at look like this. led lens However, that link for the lens is NOT the vendor I'm using. I'll keep people updated with my progress. My thought is that if you put 2 1 meter 2811 strips adjacent to each other (with directional snap-on lens'), You could probably create a similar effect to wash lights that cost a BUNCH more, like these... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL9bXXmZg1k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted February 9, 2016 Author Share Posted February 9, 2016 A year or so ago I bought a starter kit from Holiday Coro. In it was a ActiDongle, a DMX512 Signal Decoder, and a 45 watt power supply. will that give me a good start if i don't get to crazy with pixels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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