cmoore60 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 You are powering the controller with 2 power cords, correct? If you plug both of those cords into one circuit, you will be limited by that circuit to the size of the breaker, even though the controller is capable of 15 amps per side.If you want/need to pull near the 15 amps per side of controller then the 2 plugs of the controller need to be on seperate circuits.According to the NEC a GFCI is required for every outlet that is outside. According to the 2008 version of the code those outlet need to have in use tamper proof covers.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shfr26 Posted October 8, 2009 Author Share Posted October 8, 2009 My outlets will have the bar broke off and the top and bottom will have a separate 15 amp circuit. So each outlet will have two 15 amp breakers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 I think that it is always a good idea to use GFCI outlets outdoors whenever possible for safety's sake.The controller is rated to handle up to 30 amps - a maximum of 15 amps per side. If you're going to be pulling that much or near that much power, then yes, you'll want to supply each side of the controller from different circuits.If, on the other hand, the lights you'll be running from that controller are only going to amount to a couple of amps then you can easily plug both sides of the controller into the same circuit/receptacle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shfr26 Posted October 8, 2009 Author Share Posted October 8, 2009 Thanks alot guys, all of you are GREAT.. Just another newbie needing answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Thats sounds good and all, but you have to eather do GFI plugs or breakers. It was cheaper to do plugs, but plugs cannot be slip into two like you say you want to do. In order to do that you'll have to use GFI breakers, But than your limited on space, because they do not make tandem GFI breakers, That I found. Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 I have each GFI breaker on its own breaker. So for example one pair off tamdem breakers goes to one box using 12/3. The black wire goes to the brown GFI in each and the red goes the the grays. So 10 outlets mean 10 breakers. The phase 1, 2 breakers goes to my Whole house surge protection. Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Heres what my whole box looks like. The yellow wires goes out to my boxes outside. Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 This is what my tandem breakers look like. Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmoore60 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Yankee,In that case you can likely overload the neutral. 20 amps on the black, and 20 amps on the red...could put 40 amps on a 12 ga neutral? NOT GOOD. Even if your breakers are 15 amp with 12 ga wire...YOU could overload the neutral.Since both GFCI in the outlet box are powered from the same tandem breaker. You neutral could overload.Also your surge protector based on the breakers being across from each other are protecting the same phase. The protector is not protecting each phase as you think. Breakers across from each other are on the same phase. Going down the panel from the top the slots across are A phase, B phase, A phase, B phase....etc etc.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdowns Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 This has all been good discussion, but I think many of the posts fail to focus on the real design point. Just because a LOR controller can handle 30 amps tells you nothing about what kind of wiring, sub panels, extension cord gauges, etc. that you actually need.The only thing that matters is how much current YOUR display will need now (or in the future.) Take your design, take the time (3 - 4 hours of analysis should do), figure out how much power it needs (channel by channel, light string by light string, song by song), spread the load across the controllers and each side of the controllers and you will get the right answers.There are Excel spreadsheets posted on this forum that make this task manageable. (If you don't have Excel you can download OpenOffice for free.) Last year was my first year and I was surprised by the need for power planning.My message is that there's no need to install more infrastructure than you need. Some of the examples in this thread were expensive! Of course, if that's what was needed that's what was needed. I'm just suggesting you do the analysis before you call the electrician. He won't know what you need. Only you can figure that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 George Simmons wrote: Max-Paul wrote: July,...(romax running through the wooden frame of your house)....not of the right gage.Call me anal, or whatever else makes you feel good, but mis-spellings of common, simple words make me crazy - especially from someone giving "expert" advice. I was sixteen when I worked for an electrician in the '60's, but back then we spelled romex with an "e". When did it change to romax? And when did guage change to gage? Last time I looked, there was a spell-checker provided here. Perhaps LOR needs to develop a tutorial on its use...Thanks for the input george. mean time go bat manure crazy with my misspelling.Have a good day george.Thanks July for the support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cray Augsburg Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 George, George, George!!!Apparently I am a little more anal than you (do we really need a competition?) I'll accept that, in Minnesota, "gage" might be more correctly spelled "guage." But here in Kentucky, we spell it with the "a" before the "u" -- as in "gauge." (snicker, snicker)Cray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cray Augsburg Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Yeah, Pat. I'm with you. My response to July was based on safety because I feared he was going to simply swap a breaker (actually, my first internal response was "If you're gonna swap a 20 amp for something bigger, you better have a lot of marshmallows and hot dogs handy -- firemen get really hungry!). I was more than relieved to discover that wasn't his plan!Your point is dead on. You may not need all the current capacity of a particular circuit if you know you aren't going to overload it. In fact, for testing my sequences, all four plugs of my two controllers are plugged into one double outlet -- migh test load isn't high.There are at least two arts us "control freaks" must work to master. First is that of making the lights and music fit with each other -- to make sense. The other art is that of matching our displays to the electrical current we have available. Deciding what elements should be controlled by which controllers because of current limitations (or excesses) is part of the art of what we do.Cray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 were do I find the excel spreadsheets to download? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdowns Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 You can download it from here:http://www.t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.htmlIt is an excellent piece of work. The first thing you must do is describe your light strings. The spreadsheet refers to that as a "Channel List." That task alone is worth the effort and does not take long. Then the main spreadsheet will actually read your LOR sequences, compare them to your lights and calculate power consumption for your songs.Or - you could design to the requirement of everything is on at once. For small displays that may be a good approach, for larger displays that may blow fuses. In any case, I recommend you create the "Channel list." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Knowing very little about electrical circuits, I have another question....What is the point of having a sub-circuit breaker for each LOR? Could you not put in a very large breaker at your main and daisy chain the outlets to each of your LOR units? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmoore60 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 With a large breaker in the panel that feeds say 10 lor controllers, you could potentially damage all the controllers before the breaker would trip if you have a problem.In addition a large breaker in the panel. Means LARGE wire feeding the outlets. Most outlets that LOR would plug into will take 12 or 14 ga wire. I doubt many will take even 10 ga wire.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 How could you damage the controllers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Cray Augsburg wrote: George, George, George!!!Apparently I am a little more anal than you (do we really need a competition?) Hey - a little competition is a good thing, isn't it? Thank you Cray - the beer I'll be drinking this evening will definitely taste better having been bought by someone else. A buddy of mine (who's a regular lurker on these pages even though he professes to be totally disinterested in the whole Holiday lighting thing) bet me that no one would even notice a mis-spelling given how ingrained and accepted poor spelling has become in our republic since the days he and I went to school in the middle of the last century. I bet him he was wrong. The deadline was 5 PM (central) today. I've gotta admit I was feeling pretty nervous when no one jumped on it immediately, but you saved my bacon with a few hours to spare. My hat's off to you! Happy sequencing.George Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmoore60 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Jeff,If you look at Yankees panel layout he is using tandem breakers and both lines from the breaker are feeding a single box ( 2 GFCI receptacles) outside. He stated he would be plugging both sides of a controller into the single box. This could have the potential to overload the neutral.Quote from Yankee:"I have each GFI breaker on its own breaker. So for example one pair off tamdem breakers goes to one box using 12/3. The black wire goes to the brown GFI in each and the red goes the the grays. So 10 outlets mean 10 breakers."I do understand that if his Christmas box 1 breakers were on seperate phased, BUT THEY ARE NOT.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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