Big led light trees

[marty h]

Hello. 
after years of programing lights I probably should know this but dont. 
 

im want to add a couple of really large trees  that would have at least 32 sets of led lights around them 360 degrees. 
 

my question is how does this work from an ac controller perspective? 
 

thanks in advance. 

Edited June 6 by marty h

[TheDucks]

You need at least 2 16 port AC controllers. With LED strings it is pretty hard to overload a port.

I said AT  LEAST, because each port is just 1 strand of whatever color. Some folk used to have 3 colors (3 ports) per spoke. That is 96 ports (6 controllers)

There are a lot of pre-owned Gen 2 controllers for sale, but those, while working, are not the best with LED, nor run at the faster network speeds and will need more care to perform well (they don't have snubbers, for 1).

32 strands will be heavy. Your tree will need a winch as well as be strong

[Mr. P]

My largest led tree uses six ac controllers 96 strands. The tree is 18 feet tall with four different colors up and down and two controllers for spirals, 16 in each direction. I use military antenna poles with six guy lines anchoring the tree, three from the top and three halfway. I don't have a winch but a contraption I made to clamp my ladder to the pole once the center pole is supported. I have always wanted a winch system but I don't think that would work with the spirals. I have been putting this tree up for 10 years and it fell the first year, talk about a tangled mess, lessons learned that year.

[marty h]

Thanks for the input .  I'm not really concerned about building the actual tree although I appreciate the tips.  I asking what the controller channels look when programing in S6? l Each ac controller having 16 channels if you want to use more that 1 ac controller.

 

Thanks 

 

Marty

[Mr. P]

Each ac controller will have it's own LOR ID so it's pretty straight forward. So lets say controller 1 will have an ID of 01 with channels 1-16, controller 2 will have an ID of 02 with channels 1-16 and so on. You will use whatever ID's are not in use by other controllers.

Edited June 7 by Mr. P

[marty h]

Ok.  I currently have 9 ac controllers 2 RGB trees, RGB arches other stuff.  Ive never used more than 1 Ac controller on a particular prop.  Ill figure it out . 

 

Thanks 

[Mr. P]

It doesn't matter how many controllers you use, when you build your prop you will assign a controller ID and channel to each string in the prop.

[Thebug]

When you build it i would recommend the ASAP pole to hold that kind of weight 

http://www.magicchristmas.org/asap-sr-single-stage.html

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

For A POLE I use a Rohn Tower if you can get one,  Thebug is right about the weight , figure the kind/number of light strings and put them in a large tote , then see if you can lift them. If you are still interested in this type of project look in the "Coffee Shop section" there is an add for a 25' tower for sale, but the guy has not picked it up yet. I can check with him to see if he still wants it, I am giving this away FEE to anyone with LOR in mind, you must pick it up can not ship .

Earle  

[Al Saunders]

Hi Marty,

As for the sequencing part of a Mega tree with more than one controller, what you need to do is name or number each controller. Then you'll need to name each channel of those controllers. I'm still in S4 but I would think the sequencing of non-RGB lights in S6 would still use the sequencing grid like we have/had in S4. So assuming you will have 32 strings, you'll need 32 channels/2 controller. You did not mention colors so the easiest thing to do would be to have 2 A/C controllers each having 16 channels of the same color or strands of multi color LED strings. If we kept this this simple, you would have, let's say controller 01 & 02. Then in your S6 sequencing grid you would name the channels on controller 01 (Mega Tree 1-16). And on controller 02 you would name the channels (Mega Tree 17-32). Then you can sequence chases around the tree going from 1 to 32 or 32 to 1 (reverse rotation). And you can make any other combinations you want. I like the look of having a string lit on either side of the tree and then chasing around the tree in the same direction. So you would do something like channel 1 and 17 come on at the same time and then go 2, 3, 4, etc. and at the same time go 18, 19, 20 etc. I will tell you and others here would agree, the more strings and channels you have the better the tree will look. The more strings you have the "fuller" it will be. 

Just remember the unit ID numbers will always be 1 -16, you're just renaming them in the software/preview so YOU know what channel is going to or being used for. I hope this helps. Have fun! 

Al

[TheDucks]

16 unit Unit ID's are still HEX. 01-20, 😁

+1 on Label your controllers. A Location and its LOR ID (ranges) (be sure your dangles are still marked. I noticed the the Brady markers on my AC boxes are getting sad.

 

[Mr. P]

1 hour ago, TheDucks said:

16 unit Unit ID's are still HEX. 01-20, 😁

 

Actually it's 01-10, come on now Ducks. 😁

[TheDucks]

2 hours ago, Mr. P said:

Actually it's 01-10, come on now Ducks. 😁

🙄brain phart