ryebred Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I typically leave town for 3-4 days around Christmas and with a static display on a timer, I would unplug all the roof and house lights while away but leave the front yard and lawn lights and accessories plugged in. I told my next door neighbor we would be gone and gave them my contact number in case of any issues.This year, I am converting to a full 64 channel LOR display complete with a mega tree and two CCR's. I am wondering if I should risk letting the show continue to run while we are out of town for a couple days. If I win the best lights display in Santa Clara award, then there will probably be a lot of people coming by to see the display while we are away.What is the longest you guys have left your display unattended? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cenote Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I leave all the time, last year was gone for 7 days, no problems.This year my father who runs 64 channels, left for two weeks, came home to no problems. And this was with two week s before, he submerged one of his controllers under water for a day (while powered, no electrocution to anybody), and it still worked fine after drying out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanward Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 Hahahaha, the longest I left my display unattended was only for half a day at most! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 In '08 I was so paranoid and inexperienced that I never left it unattended the entire season. Every night everything went off without a hitch. (Not counting the occasional bulb needing replacement, of course.) This past season we took off a couple of times during the day and returned home well after the show had started. Except for the "mailbox" being bereft of candy canes and info sheets (and one controller having problems with a weak voltage regulator when the temp went below zero which I couldn't do anything about anyway) everything again went off without a hitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grump010 Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 We were on vacation for 11 days at the beginning of December and the display is still running, musical animation for December and a fading animation since Jan 1. The weather ranged from -13 to +35 and we didn't have any issues whatsoever.CheersDaryl B. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I don't like to post publicly when I'm typically gone. But we are often gone for part of an evening, and sometimes have to be away 2-3 nights in a row. I don't like it, but nothing bad has ever come of it.I think it would be much worse to shut down during that time- it would be equivalent to hanging up a big sign saying "we're not home, help yourself..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 So, being a first timer this year. I stayed at home most nights and all ran like a well oiled swiss clock. But the two nights I went out, guess what happened. First time we went out on the 12th of Dec to pick up the daughter from the Airport. Came home and some channels were going wild as I spoke of this before. The second time was Christmas afternoon to early evening to see a movie. This time 3 of 4 controllers are off-line. Turns out to be a blown fuse, open neutral line (power was runned daisy chain between the controllers) and one string on my arch was blowing the fuse. This one was not fixed till the next day. Pulled the lead to the offending segment of the one arch. Replaced the fuse and made repair to the neutral lead.I'll take my chances and just hope the show runs better in 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanward Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 Open neutral??????Where was the open neutral? If you get an open neutral at the service, you can start blowing light bulbs! and getting 240VAC at the outlet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebaronn Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 ryebred wrote: I typically leave town for 3-4 days around Christmas and with a static display on a timer, I would unplug all the roof and house lights while away but leave the front yard and lawn lights and accessories plugged in. I told my next door neighbor we would be gone and gave them my contact number in case of any issues.This year, I am converting to a full 64 channel LOR display complete with a mega tree and two CCR's. I am wondering if I should risk letting the show continue to run while we are out of town for a couple days. If I win the best lights display in Santa Clara award, then there will probably be a lot of people coming by to see the display while we are away.What is the longest you guys have left your display unattended?I used to live in San Jose and I left my LOR unattended for two, 7 Days sessions last year. No problems.Santa Clara eh? Good luck competing with Steven and his block! He is the reason I moved to Lathrop, LOL! (J/K besides he is in sunnyvale)Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 stanward wrote: Open neutral??????Where was the open neutral? If you get an open neutral at the service, you can start blowing light bulbs! and getting 240VAC at the outlet!Hi Stanward,Whoa big guy. As you might have noted that I said that I have 4 controllers and that the open neutral knocked out 3 of them. Also I stated that I had daisy chained the power to my controllers. Thus the open was after the first controller and before the 2nd controller. Ok, I will explain in detail. Are you familiar with the insolated quick connects that they use on applicances? If so, then you got half of the picture. Have you ever installed such connectors? Well if you have not, let me explain what happens sometimes with the male connector. After you have applied the crimp the flat spade will sometimes bend over and the tip will be touching the insolator shell. Seems I missed bending it back and shoved the insolated female into the males insolating shell, but missing the male and instead of going into the female, it slide under the insolator. Now you might be asking, But how did it make electrical connection in the first place. Well I let a little bare wire extend out past the crimp tube and so I pushed the female in so far that the very edge of the female metal contact touch the wire stub. Using LED lights required a small amount of current and all was well, well sort of. Then I had one set of LEDs that decided to short out its rectifier. This current draw was enough to cause both the fuse on the controller to pop (15A) and the bad connection to act like a fuse to and melt the little wire stub plus a little off of the tip of the female connector.Thus all of the LEDs past this point to glow very dimly and give it a ghostly look.And for your information. What would happen if I lost my neutral to the house what happens. Depending on the load on each side of the breaker panel would determine how much voltage would be on what devices. Example, turn everything in the house off. Now turn on one light bulb on phase A, nothing right. Now turn on a light bulb on phase B, both lights would be about the same brightness. Oh, and I should say that both would be 60Ws. Now the frig kicks in on the A phase. What happens is the resistance on the A phase goes much lower than the B side. Thus allowing more voltage to pass through and it all shows up on what would be the neutral side of the B phase light bulb. And now I would agree, you would have darn near 220V across the B light bulb.And you wont START blowing light bulbs, you will blow light bulbs and motors will get very hot very fast and blow windings and a very good chance of a electrical fire will start.Oh well that was a book.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.vanhouts Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Hi,Fire mostly occure by a short-circuit. When you have followed all the rules regarding electricity, you are most safe to leave it unattended. But you can never be curtain if there will something happen with you display. The same counts for your electricity in your home.in my opinion Lor units are very reliable. The lights itselve aren't always the right quality. Those will be assembled by so many you can't rely on them.If you talk about security reason, I would take some security cam's or a simple alarm system voor your yard.I'll say it's up to you, no one can decide for one other if to leave their lights unattended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryebred Posted January 18, 2010 Author Share Posted January 18, 2010 thebaronn wrote: Santa Clara eh? Good luck competing with Steven and his block! He is the reason I moved to Lathrop, LOL! (J/K besides he is in sunnyvale)Ha Ha. Yeah, I am happy he is in Sunnyvale. There is no way way I could even get my neighbors to put up a static lights display, let alone have them coordinate with me on a synchronized display. Well, maybe if I bought everything for them and set it all up and then took it down and stored it at my place when I was done. heh.I suppose it was presumptuous of me to say I might win the award for lights display. There were 21 entries this year and I looked at the top 4 houses which got recognized. All of them are static displays. Besides Steven and one other guy in Sunnyvale, I have never seen a synchronized lights display ever in this area so I am hoping to appeal to some of the judges with being unique for this area. But the judges are from a Senior Center so they may prefer the more "traditional" lights displays and more "traditional" incandescent lights. heh.You guys that were away for a week or two, never have a computer crash or freeze up while gone? I suppose one could remotely connect to the machine running the show to check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Hughes Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Although I was mostly home the entire month, my LOR system ran flawlessly from Thanksgiving Night through New Year's Eve.Still ... any time I was coming home from work, grocery store, you name it I wondered what I would find :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanward Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Instead of what the thread title says (how long you leave your display unattended?), what about the question of:What do you do when your display is going on, and there are a lot of people outside? Do you go outside and talk to them, walk around your house like it's an ordinary day, close the curtains and hide?I am so embarassed, that I close all of the curtains on that side of the house, and try not to turn on lights on that side of the house as well (don't want to take away from the show). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebaronn Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 ryebred wrote: thebaronn wrote:Santa Clara eh? Good luck competing with Steven and his block! He is the reason I moved to Lathrop, LOL! (J/K besides he is in sunnyvale)Ha Ha. Yeah, I am happy he is in Sunnyvale. There is no way way I could even get my neighbors to put up a static lights display, let alone have them coordinate with me on a synchronized display. Well, maybe if I bought everything for them and set it all up and then took it down and stored it at my place when I was done. heh.I suppose it was presumptuous of me to say I might win the award for lights display. There were 21 entries this year and I looked at the top 4 houses which got recognized. All of them are static displays. Besides Steven and one other guy in Sunnyvale, I have never seen a synchronized lights display ever in this area so I am hoping to appeal to some of the judges with being unique for this area. But the judges are from a Senior Center so they may prefer the more "traditional" lights displays and more "traditional" incandescent lights. heh.You guys that were away for a week or two, never have a computer crash or freeze up while gone? I suppose one could remotely connect to the machine running the show to check.Never had a computer problem. My first year I did, but it was operator error (I left the screen saver on, took me a week to figure out what was going on)presumptuos no, positive yes!THINK BIG, BE BIG MY FRIEND!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebaronn Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 stanward wrote: Instead of what the thread title says (how long you leave your display unattended?), what about the question of:What do you do when your display is going on, and there are a lot of people outside? Do you go outside and talk to them, walk around your house like it's an ordinary day, close the curtains and hide?I am so embarassed, that I close all of the curtains on that side of the house, and try not to turn on lights on that side of the house as well (don't want to take away from the show).I get all excited like a kid at christmas and peek out the window and count the cars (this year, in our new location, i counted 1!!!!)Outside lights are off as well as front room lights.EricMy wife hated the traffic at our old place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanward Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Oh yeah, that's right! My wife and I do the same, we peek out the window and count the cars as well! We call the visitors, "customers." So we would tell each other, "there are 6 customers outside."thebaronn wrote: I get all excited like a kid at christmas and peek out the window and count the cars (this year, in our new location, i counted 1!!!!)Outside lights are off as well as front room lights.EricMy wife hated the traffic at our old place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddmoon Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 We left our show unattended several times during the Christmas season. We had multiple snow storms dump many feet of snow. The only issue we had was clearing snow out so you could see the displays on the ground.The show ran without any issues. We do lose power often where I live so having the program loaded onto my notebook was bonus. I never had to worry about getting my computer up and running after a power loss.We always had a lot of traffic in front of our house. I live in a small town and there are not a lot of things to do so my show was very popular with kids. Especially with my virtual santa. I still have people asking me if that was me dressed up as santa in the window. I explain to them that it was video and they are amazed.Security has not been a real big issue where I live. I have good neighbors and great junk yard dog that watches my front yard for me. I did have some young men come into the yard to re decorate for me and my dog had a good time chasing them out of the yard. They never did try and come back to try and re decorate my yard.The LOR system is very robust and reliable. I have not had any issues with leaving it up and running un attended. I have been even considering setting up a box to run a program for lights in my house to give it the lived in look when I am not at home. Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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