scodavis Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 Hello all, I need to plan out my flood/controller layout so I know where I will place the controllers and, thus, how many extensions I need to buy. I plan to have two sets of 8 of the 10W RGB floods on my house as I want them to be BRIGHT. So, I have two questions for those that use the RGB 10W floods with the CMB24D controller (and presumably with the LOR power adapter, but I don't know that piece is as critical to the equation). 1. How long is the longest distance of wire that you personally use from controller to flood? 2. With that above-mentioned length, do you notice any brightness dropoff or lag due to the wire length? And as an additional question, perhaps to LOR itself: 3. Is there any officially-documented "maximum length" before noticeable brightness dropoff? Thank you, everybody! -Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 I have been using 30 10w LED floods for the past several years for my mega arch and mega tree tower. The max run of extension wire from the floods to controllers is around 40' with 5' being the minimum. I see no difference in the brightness of the floods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scodavis Posted August 5, 2016 Author Share Posted August 5, 2016 Thanks, Tom - I also notice how beautifully your display illuminates the snow. We don't get snow in Fresno Thanks for the reply! -Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
75redman Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 Like Tom my max length is 40ft. Everything works great. Here's a video. You can see more videos on my youtube channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 I've personally used a LOR 10w flood 48' from a CMB16D controller. (I added 2 16-ft extensions) I had zero lag and it didn't seem like any drop in brightness, although I can't be totally certain there wasn't any. Didn't look like it, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scodavis Posted August 5, 2016 Author Share Posted August 5, 2016 I'll provide a bit more detail now that I have some dimensions measured. On the west side of my house, if I put the controller where I want to (in the garage), some of the wire runs will be 70-80 feet, and I just don't know if that will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 Do a test. You have time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 10 hours ago, scodavis said: I'll provide a bit more detail now that I have some dimensions measured. On the west side of my house, if I put the controller where I want to (in the garage), some of the wire runs will be 70-80 feet, and I just don't know if that will work. With dumb RGB lights, it's just a matter of voltage drop. Get the wire big enough and almost anything would work. My longest dumb RGB run is about 50 feet and it's a 6 meter strip of 30 pixel per meter, so about 42 watts. I'm using four conductor 16 gauge "speaker" cable. This is part of my year round landscape lighting and gets used every night. Works fine. With a single 10W flood, it should not take overly large wire to do 80 feet. As Santa's Helper said, do a test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oilmoney Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 17 hours ago, scodavis said: Hello all, I need to plan out my flood/controller layout so I know where I will place the controllers and, thus, how many extensions I need to buy. I plan to have two sets of 8 of the 10W RGB floods on my house as I want them to be BRIGHT. So, I have two questions for those that use the RGB 10W floods with the CMB24D controller (and presumably with the LOR power adapter, but I don't know that piece is as critical to the equation). 1. How long is the longest distance of wire that you personally use from controller to flood? 2. With that above-mentioned length, do you notice any brightness dropoff or lag due to the wire length? And as an additional question, perhaps to LOR itself: 3. Is there any officially-documented "maximum length" before noticeable brightness dropoff? Thank you, everybody! -Scott When you say that you want them to be bright be careful what you wish for, you're painting your house with these floods, personally I'd be more interested in a rich, full, color across my house with little variance across it. If you just went for bright it'll look patchy. I have my floods set up in a grid, 20 pointing at the house and 28 pointed at the street. As I have them in a grid it allows me to do chases and fades across my house, I also have set my lights up so I can reposition certain lights to eliminate any dark and bright spots. Are you planning on keeping both controllers together or split? Provided that they're split up you can cover 40ft of house before you even need to buy extensions. I would set the lights up and turn them on and see how different colors look on your house and then re-position accordingly and see if you need the extensions or not. Just my nickel, we don't have cents up here anymore... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scodavis Posted August 5, 2016 Author Share Posted August 5, 2016 5 hours ago, oilmoney said: When you say that you want them to be bright be careful what you wish for, you're painting your house with these floods, personally I'd be more interested in a rich, full, color across my house with little variance across it. If you just went for bright it'll look patchy. I have my floods set up in a grid, 20 pointing at the house and 28 pointed at the street. As I have them in a grid it allows me to do chases and fades across my house, I also have set my lights up so I can reposition certain lights to eliminate any dark and bright spots. Are you planning on keeping both controllers together or split? Provided that they're split up you can cover 40ft of house before you even need to buy extensions. I would set the lights up and turn them on and see how different colors look on your house and then re-position accordingly and see if you need the extensions or not. Just my nickel, we don't have cents up here anymore... Let me re-state. The main lights that will be mounted on my house are bright, as they are super strings (WRGB) and were a lot more intense than I was expecting. I want to make sure the floods are bright in the sense of being visible with the main lights being on as well. To @Santas Helper - excellent suggestion. You bet I will. -Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 36 minutes ago, scodavis said: To @Santas Helper - excellent suggestion. You bet I will. -Scott Scott, when you do a test, please keep us posted on your results/findings. This will help us know what to expect in a similar situation AND will benefit others in the future when they read about your results/findings. I promise you're not the only one curious. Just not a lot of people have the same situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Batzdorf Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 (edited) So I have been researching the 10w LOR floods to determine if they will be bright enough, mainly for house washing. Santas Helper pretty much answered that for me with his pix. Thanks! Edited August 8, 2016 by Dave Batzdorf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 You're welcome. So maybe a couple more pics will be even better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Oh, what the heck. A few more. All 10w LED floods. Hacked by yours truly and ran off the LOR DC controllers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scodavis Posted August 8, 2016 Author Share Posted August 8, 2016 9 minutes ago, Santas Helper said: You're welcome. So maybe a couple more pics will be even better. Wow, Tom, what a "flood" of beautiful pictures! <Cue laughter track> This image was of particular interest to me as I plan to also mount the floods to my eaves. Can you tell me what the distance is from the mounted floods to the wall? -Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Roughly a foot away from the wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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