New/ How Difficult

[Mike Pratt]

looking to buy 16 LOR starter kit. Is it hard to use the program?

[Don]

Download the demo version of the software (Available here.) and try out the software.

It will give you an idea as to how the sequencer is going to work.

[Mike Pratt]

I did that and it said I needed to have the LOR hooked up or something.

2nd Question: How many 100 strand lights can you hook up to 1 plug in before u go up in smoke?

Thanks so much

[Greg]

that will depend on the controller you buy, and whether you have heat sinks installed. did you look here you may have alot of your questions answered

http://www.lightorama.com/support.html

also here is the product matrix comparision it should also help answer your questions

http://lightorama.com/Documents/AC_ControllerMatrix.pdf



the number of lights will depend on the typ and the amp draw of each strand, for instance on average a 100 count mini set is around .21 amps per string.

greg

[-klb-]

Mike P wrote:

I did that and it said I needed to have the LOR hooked up or something.

You should get at least one warning message. One of them will be that it is in demo mode. The other one which you may get is that the software is unable to control the lights, because no communication adapter is present.

Neither of these will prevent you from putting together a sequence and animation drawing to simulate what you can do, and once you buy the hardware and a license for the software, that sequence you did to try things out will actually work on that computer. To move that sequence to a different computer, you will have to buy a high enough license level. (one that does not encrypt the files)

[wildredhead]

oh gosh no. People will help you out when you get stuck. I bought mine last season. It is really easy just follow the directions and when it is done, it is totally worth it.

[Guest wbottomley]

Here's a few things to read to get started:

PC series controllers: http://lightorama.com/Documents/CTB16PCv1.pdf

Showtime series controllers: http://lightorama.com/Documents/LOR160xW.pdf

Software: http://lightorama.com/Documents/S2.pdf

What do you need: http://lightorama.com/Documents/What_Do_I_Need.pdf

FAQ's: http://www.lightorama.com/LOR_FAQ.html

Making a musical sequence: http://www.lightorama.com/Documents/QuickStartGuideMusicalSequence.pdf

Making an animation sequence: http://www.lightorama.com/Documents/QuickStartGuideAnimationSequence.pdf

[LENNY RUEL]

A quick note on how many lights. IF you buy the LOR1602W starter set which is the same one I started with last year it has a 30 amp capacity as it comes. SO knowing that a regular set of 100 incandescent mini lights uses about 1/3 of an amp, 3 sets is about 1 full amp or 300 lights. 300 lights times 30 amps is 9000 lights. Ends up being about 560 per channel if you have an even amount on each. Things to remember.... 1 side of the controller has a max of 15 amps, 1 channel has a max of 8 amps each. So if you put 8 amps worth of lights (about 2400) on one channel you only have room for about 300 on each remaining channel on that side.

Also remember IF you are going to use the unit to it's full capacity you'll need two 20 amp electrical circuits to plug it into, one for each side.

Lenny

[pdowns]

This isn't hard to do, especially if you keep it simple. You can have a great deal of fun with a simple start. For instance, in my first year I didn't use the sequence editor. I purchased ready to go sequences from Light O Rama. And one 16 channel controller will do a nice job of animating songs. As others have noted, 30 amps of mini lights is a lot of lights.

It's almost Oct. 1! You don't have enough time left to get complicated this year. :-)

[Gary W]

hi lenny

iam a newbe and this is great info to know. thanks i do not have my hardware yet, on the way will not get this up this year. but one question, the controler has 8 plugs per side at 15 amps total. so one plug is one channel right? why would any one put the max 8 amps on one channel? would it be because they have a large like megatree or something in that order? i guess i have a lot to learn.also are l.e.d. light the way to go?

thanks for the info

gary w.

[Brian Mitchell]

If you had your house outlined in C7's and wanted it on one channel, That could easily use 8 amps.

[LENNY RUEL]

Gary:
Like Brian said if a guy put a roof outlined in C7's that could easily burn a channel.
The jury is out on LED's. Some love em some hate em, but they will continue to grow in importance. Hopefully the cost comes down and the quality improves. You need to really watch the big box stuff as they are not usually a one piece sealed construction like the ones from Paul, Travis or Valerie and some of the other distributors. Very succeptable to galvanic corrosion in the socket themselves. Problem is with the really good ones, even with the discounts we have available to us they run upwards of $15 per set. If you do buy from the big boxes, Sylvania and GE are both well known in the lighting industry and while I'm not saying they won't have their issues, I and others have used them. It ends up being hit and miss though and I myself take the time to pull the lights and put die-electric grease on the leads to prevent moisture from rusting them. I've had some C-6 out for 3 years and not a sign of rust. But I bought 30 more sets after the holidays last year and in going through them about 1/3 showed rust already when I opened the packages.
IF you are planning a huge display LED lights will make it easier on the power consumption. I'm pretty maxed out with 4 controllers and 40,000+ lights which is why this year over 50% of the 15,000 or so on the static side of the display are LED's.


Lenny

[Gary W]

lenny

thanks for the info on the led light. does this apply to ALL led light sizes?

gary w

[Gary W]

lenny

in your reply yo said you have a lot of led on the static side of your display.

can you tell me what that means? static side? might be a stupid question but you only get smarter if you ask.

gary w

[Ed Slonka Jr]

Static lights are not animated by your controller and most likely not even connected to a controller unless you are using X10.

They are "on" until you turn them off.

Basically how we use to display our lights before we got hooked on LOR!


Just remember one thing..... in these forums there are no stupid questions.

[LENNY RUEL]

Gary:
First question about all sizes...yes, it doesn't matter if it's the concave, which are about the size of a pencil eraser and the brightest, the M5 which are similar to a mini in size or the C5, C6, C7 or C9. They are all likely to get some rust. I think a lot depends on where you are though and where you use them.
Static lights are on all of the time. not controlled by the LOR system. Some like everything to be black except the channels that are on at any given time during a sequence. I like more the fantasy land effect with lots of lights all of the time. While all of my controllers are powering up regular mini incandescent lights, all of my C7's on the roof are LED as are the candy canes along the drives and road as well as any other elements not on the controllers except my icicle lights. I have 6, 20 amp circuits dedicated for LOR boxes and another 2, 20 amp for my static lights. With a 200 amp service yep I have to watch what else gets used while the display is running. We can make a pizza and have the oven on, but we better not be doing laundry at night ;o)
But that is why I've started to change over to LED's. I had regular C7's on the roof for years, but 14 strings would use an entire circuit. Now I have 20 strings of LED's and they don't even use 1 full amp, and I have at least half again as many bulbs!
My main concern with LED's is they have to do a better job on the whites or clears. No two manufacturers are the same and even the same company from year to year will differ. There is no consistency. And there is never such a thing as a stupid question on here.

Lenny

[Gary W]

thank you sir great info!! will keep it all in mind

gary