Residential controller questions

[celofton]

So trying to save money I purchased the residential controller, I like it, and have 16 channels with strings going on and off, no single light controls of course, during my initial setup I tried adding flood lights I picked up on amazon and it just blows the fuse in the controller.  Any ideas on how I can get floods to work with the residential controller.  

Second question, I have my controller in my garage and have 16 extension cords going under the door, we had an exterminator who says that is inviting mice into my garage but there are things to help with that, any idea what things would help with that??

Any help is appreciated, not a super fancy show, but it makes the kids happy.

 

 

[TheDucks]

How big (Watts) are these floods? A bank (2 wall cord configuration) is about 1200 W PER BANK (8 channels). If you have a 1 cord configuration, you need 2 things:

💡 #1 split the BIG loads between banks (Under 1200W total)

💡2# A separate House circuit (breaker) for each cord. 2b)convert to the 2 cord configuration  (it is in the Assembly manual for the DIY builders)

[Mr. P]

💡3# Use LED floods.

[celofton]

So I was using standard par38 fixtures with LED flood bulbs, each on its own channel and all other channels each had one single light string on it, nothing too crazy I wouldn’t think but it blew that big fuse in the controller as soon as one of the floods lit up………..  If there is a specific flood that someone recommends please let me know, would really like to get something going with floods.

[TheDucks]

If you blew that fuse with LED floods, you have a bad: 1) Bulb. 2) Socket, 3)cord.  A grounded Triac (channel)

You can test each individually. I would make a test jig. a 100W incan bulb in series with the Black lead   

Plug black ---Bulb center/Bulb shell--- Outlet black

Plug White ---------------------------- Outlet White

I did it this way so if there IS a dead short, all that happens is you get 100W of light from the bulb

Normally the bulb should glow dim for a load under 100W,  1/2 brite for 100W Do the initial test at the controller (Pull each plug and connect to the test jig ). If no fails, you have a grounded TRIAC

 

[TheDucks]

BTW Old school Incan floods were 150W and later dropped to 90W (or lower) to meet energy rules   A bank of 8 old school floods should draw 1200W (10A)

[Orville]

Not ALL LED bulbs are dimmable.

   Dimming a non-dimmable LED could blow a fuse.   Had it happen to me.  I thought I had replaced my non-dimmable LED Bulb with the new dimmable one, ran a test to check it out,make sure it worked, and blew the LED Flood bulb and blew the fuse.

Replaced fuse, replaced LED bulb and ran test again, everything worked.   Just glad the triac didn't get fried too, as that was also a possibility.

 

[dgander]

I have had both incan and LED spots and never blew a fuse (trying not to jinx myself here) however, I did have one string constantly blowing a fuse because the vampire plug was manufacturer wrong (you can find that old posting from 2 years ago) and was shorting it out. If you pull everything but those floods and plug one in at a time, I would bet you will find a short of some sort.

[k6ccc]

And related to that, if you have Martha Stewart brand LED strings, they are non-dimable, and there are many reports of them catching fire if you try it.

 

[dgrant]

3 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Martha Stewart brand LED strings

Just FYI, I didn't see them this year at homedepot where they first appeared several years ago. Hopefully HD saw the light!

[Jason purtee]

I bought these from amazon and have ran them several times  this year so far and no problems at all an they are bright.

Led Flood Light 30W, 300W Equivalent 3000 LM Outdoor Color Changing Led Stage Landscape Lights, Bluetooth RGBW Smart Floodlights 2700K & 16 Million Colors&Timing& Music Sync, IP66，US 3-Plug (2 Pack).  You can make them what ever color you want

 

[TheDucks]

1 hour ago, Jason purtee said:

I bought these from amazon and have ran them several times  this year so far and no problems at all an they are bright.

Led Flood Light 30W, 300W Equivalent 3000 LM Outdoor Color Changing Led Stage Landscape Lights, Bluetooth RGBW Smart Floodlights 2700K & 16 Million Colors&Timing& Music Sync, IP66，US 3-Plug (2 Pack).  You can make them what ever color you want

 

Those are ONLY Stand Alone. 

Any device WITH a effect control can NOT be used with a LOR controller (or other brands)

[k6ccc]

1 hour ago, TheDucks said:

Those are ONLY Stand Alone. 

Any device WITH a effect control can NOT be used with a LOR controller (or other brands)

With the exception of using LOR to turn them on or off via an AC controller that is only providing off or full voltage.  And even that depends on the device - specifically what it does at power up.

 

[Orville]

15 hours ago, TheDucks said:

Those are ONLY Stand Alone. 

Any device WITH a effect control can NOT be used with a LOR controller (or other brands)

I have ran many lights that had their own effects controller.  The ones I couldn't use are the ones that DID NOT RETAIN their last setting, so it always started with the same effect every time it was turned off and then back on.

I ran some animated stars and snowflakes, incandescent, 8 modes, retained settings.  Worked perfectly fine using 100% ON, AND FULL OFF commands.   Absolutely no fades, dimming or effects.  Ran them for over 6 years on a V1 CTB16PC ~AC~ Controller.  Never a problem. 

Year 7 I cut all those apart and had them as 8 single channel stars and 8 single channel snowflakes, when I got my RGB Coro Snowflakes, I retired those incan stars and snowflakes.

I only use 1 CTB16PC Controller in my current setup, it powers my N4-G4 MP3 DIRECTOR and runs a few Blow Mold items.   Most everything else in my display is SMART RGB now.

[dgrant]

I agree with the either on or off only at %100. I've also found that there's a place for incans in some of our props. I "see" an issue with too many led intelligent props. Sure they provide lots of capabilities we don't have with incans but they also tend to look too futuristic in my opinion. I tend to enjoy a little nostalgia in my lights. Yes, I do use leds in soft white and similar to keep the power consumption down. Here's a simple example on my part, for my mega trees, I use 32 strings each tree. 16 CW and 16 CCW. So a spiral tree in both directions, leds, 2 ac controllers each. This allows me to dance the trees to each other or whatever but it disallows creating animations on them. Sure, less fancy, but also less futuristic and it looks a little more nostalgic. I also tend to combine props so there are more than one type of capability into each prop. Sometimes a mix of pixels with regular leds or pixels and incans, depending on the effect I'm looking for. Yep, I've retired some too.

[Steven]

On 11/10/2024 at 11:32 AM, celofton said:

Second question, I have my controller in my garage and have 16 extension cords going under the door, we had an exterminator who says that is inviting mice into my garage but there are things to help with that, any idea what things would help with that??

Don't run 16 extension cords under the door. Instead, put the controller outside, in the middle of your display, in it's weatherproof box, and run a very thin cat5 cable under the door.