What do I need to do a float?

[Bowshock]

Hi everyone!

I've just been given the task of lighting a UTV for a holiday light parade in November. What do I need to get that done? Can I use a 12v battery and a DC board? What lights should I get?

I really have no idea where to begin.

Thanks!

[Denny]

I pretty much asked similar questions about building my train. http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum25/16599.html

Yes, you can use the DC card with a 12volt battery. Depends on the float as far as the lights. Are you going to use a generator for 120 volts? Don't know how LOR works with a power inverter, but it may be possible to use a regular 1600 series controller if a power inverter works. I think I would go with LEDs since they draw less amperage through the inverter. Using the DC board, I would think that finding off the shelf LED strings that run on DC might turn out to be expensive.

If you are going to make the July AZ meeting, maybe we can try to figure something out.

[Brian Mitchell]

Call me dumb but......what's a UTV?

[Bowshock]

Brian Mitchell wrote:

Call me dumb but......what's a UTV?

Well, you might not be dumb I might be using the wrong acronym. UTV is a 4 wheel utility vehicle (Yamaha Rhino). I'm probably making something up....if so you all are my witnesses I want the copy right!!

:dude:

Denny: I'm planning on showing to the meeting. I'm really interested in how your train system works. My neighbor has a train he doesn't want anymore....

[Brian Mitchell]

I guess I'm used to ATV or Quad runner. I'm guessing you are talking about a larger version. Is it 12 volts? I'm guessing an inverter would work as long as you are going to use LED's since that wont have a large load. I picked up a 6 amp inverter from Wallyworld for $65.

[Denny]

Bowshock wrote:

Denny: I'm planning on showing to the meeting. I'm really interested in how your train system works. My neighbor has a train he doesn't want anymore....

I have the ELL, but don't have the DC board yet. I ordered it during the sale, so maybe it will be here before we meet. If so, I will bring it to the meeting along with the ELL. About all I have done to the train so far is paint it and install LED lights. I need the DC board to figure out how to mount it in the train. Right now, I am thinking about installing it in one of the train cars since I want to try and fabricate a 12 volt snow blower to fit inside the locomotive itself and there is not a lot of room inside the "boiler." I would like to have the train blow snow out the smoke stack and maybe install another MR16 in the stack to light the snow as it "smokes." I was thinking of using a 12 volt electric fuel pump for the snow fluid and get an automobile heat/AC blower for the blower. But, they are pretty large and I am sure draw quite a bit of amperage. Right now, I think I will check out the thrift stores and see if I can find one of those small hand vacumns, like a DustBuster. Don't know how many CFM they put out though. But, the price should be only a couple of dollars at Goodwill or similar store. My problems right now are different voltages, 6 volts for the train motors, 12 volts for the MR16 lights and power to the DC card and pump, 4.5 volts for the LED lights. Will probably wire the two 6 volt motors in series and run them off a 12 volt battery.

[JonB256]

I ran a parade float last year, all from a 12vdc car battery. I was prepared to run a long jumper from the truck's battery back to mine, but it wasn't necessary.

Since I didn't have any 12vdc strings of lights, I used 110VAC LED strings and turned them ON/OFF with 12vdc relays.

So, the float used a single DC control board (I used D-Light, but the LOR board is very similar). I ran a music sequence programmed in LOR2 to that board. I had 10 channels of AC lights, all getting their power from a 1200watt inverter. Between the AC power source and the lights, I spliced DC relays into a homemade 6 inch extension cord so that it would OPEN the Hot leg of the AC when I wanted the lights to turn off. I wired them so that it took power to turn the lights OFF. That meant that if all else failed, the lights would be ON and the float wouldn't be dark. I did have some (4 channels) of 12volt halogen spots positioned on the float pointing at the children in the center. There were LED strings coming down from a center pole to 8 points around the float and there were LED lights around long "marquee" boards down each side of the float (they weren't really bright enough to suit me, though).

The DC boards do not put out "pure" DC. They put out Pulse Width Modulated DC with a base frequency of 300 hertz. What that means is that some relays (like the ones I used) may chatter at that 300 Hz before they close their contacts. Not only do you hear a buzz in the relay, the lights flicker momentarily. Since I was concerned about premature failure due to the chattering, I put a Resistor and Capacitor network across the DC input and it "smoothed" the DC pulses well enough to get a good solid latch every time. I don't remember the values, but I got the parts at Radio Shack for not much money. I'll look the values up and post if you're interested.

So, I ran the same song over and over on the parade route (A Calypso beat version of "Happy Birthday King Jesus") to match the parade theme. We took First Place for Best Use of Lights.