danj

zman makes a very good point about one year wonders. I was surprised at how much time everything required. One additional item I learned my first year is that you are presenting a show for others. I had pictured the sequenced display mainly for me but that was incorrect. I could see how you could get into this, have a tough first year then decide wow this is not for me. There is a lot to it!! But I love it and plan to slowly build each year. Looking forward to our next expansion--an RGB mega tree.

Point taken. Guilty as charged myself......

Well I guess that question is answered....

Thanks Sean. I went thru a few of your really basic tutorials to learn how to do the basics in xlights/nutcracker; worked like a champ. I am sure you have seen me post that I did my RGB arch effects in xlights/nutcracker for Christmas 2013 then exported them into LOR and ran from LOR.

Sean: Can you please post the vimeo link or something like that so we know where to go? Thanks!

I had about 8000 lights up this year, about half static and half dynamic. 16 mini trees, four arches with 60 RGB elements per arch, icicles on front of house, nets on bushes, and a small homemade nativity scene with blow molds of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph. I got it all down and "staged" in my garage in one day but based on my progress so far it will take me about 5 days to get it all put up and organized. Of course, I had to "gut" a large part of my work shop to remove a work bench and install a good-sized shelving system for all my new stuff. So the 5 days is including a lot of "first and only time I will have to do it" items like building the shelves and organizing all my new stuff and putting it on the shelves. I am trying to minimize what I put up in the attic. The disappearing stairs are convenient, but they always feel "rickety" to me so only what had to go up there! Trying to really think thru how I am putting everything up so it minimizes work next Christmas season!!

This was my first year to sequence and to use pixels. I used the WS2811 5050 SMD strips from Ray Wu's store. All my problems were self inflicted, including cable lengths too long (with no "null pixels" installed....) and poor soldering. I had to cut my 5m strips into 2m segments to "fit" into my arches. I had some water problems one night when it had rained fairly steadily all day and night; other than that no problems (of course these were the sealed strips and they were inside PEX tubing). For 2014 I plan to: Put the controller (an E682, which worked wonderfully) closer to the arches. Add a pixel tree, probably with its own E682 and Renard (for strobes incorporated into pixel tree) controllers. Haven't decided which RGBs I will use yet; thinking thru that and reading... I have decided to go 360 degrees, so right now I think I will make it using 4m strips so my soldering can at least be minimized!! Which would make it about 12-13' tall or thereabouts once it is "raised" off the ground about a foot.

I recommend also that you check out DIY Christmas forum for group buys in progress right now. Some are for Renard "BOMs" (all the parts needed to fabricated a Renard board). I didn't look into whether this is cheaper than WayneJ's offerings, as the posts I read about his controllers indicated that his prices were about what all the pieces would be if you bought them individually...

Just wondering if anyone would be interested in a mini PLUS in Louisiana? I attended the MS Mini PLUS held in Flowood, MS in July 2013 (hosted by BroLarry)--was wonderful. Anyway, just wondering if there might be interest in Louisiana....

Go to DIY Christmas forum. Wayne J is selling SS Renard kits now. I can't get the URL to cut/paste for some reason. Search for WayneJ and "SS Renard Kits now available" on that forum; just posted a few days ago. I see lot of good feedback about the kit and the product. Wayne also posted a very good "how to solder" video using an SS Renard board as the example on the video. I plan to order at least one of these for next year, as I am going to move away from LOR and start using non-LOR software & hardware. I have decided to become a DIYer... Ha Nothing against LOR (they sell solid hardware & software); but as I get more into this stuff I have realized either you spend LOTS of money or you become a DIYer to minimize the $$ you spend. My opinion is that LOR is only "friendly" with RGB components sold by LOR. If you go with non-LOR RGB equipment it is really difficult to configure it in LOR. Another reason I am going to move away from LOR euqipment

Thanks for the quick reply. I was looking for the 3D wire frame angels. I should have said that more clearly in my post

We are looking for lighted wire frame angels (the ones that are about 48" high with a trumpet). I have looked around at a few local stores and have dug around on internet with no real success so far. Any ideas out there where we could find this?? Thanks in advance.

I second the input vkjohnson provided. This was my first year to synch. EVERYTHING took much longer than I expected. I ran into problems that HAD to be resolved. I am currently using an LOR CTB16PC for my AC channels and a SanDevices E682 for my RGB arches. I took a small dip into RGB this year. It was almost too much for me to be honest; I started in September. But I am glad I did because I now have a lot of learning curve behind me and can confidently go after a pixel tree next year. Here are my thoughts on LOR with respect to RGBs--if you are serious about RGBs you should probably go with some sequencing tool "other than" LOR. You can read a LOT of posts about how SLOOOOOOWWWW LOR gets when you get up to high RGB channel counts. I am only running 360 RGB channels this year (six 60 channel arches) and LOR is already slowing down pretty significantly on me. My two cents on this subject..... I am going to try to move from LOR S3 to Hinkle's Lighting Sequencer (HLS) for next year's displays. I used xlights/nutcracker to sequence my RGB effects this year, then dumped it into LOR S3. That worked pretty well. Now, if you are willing to spend a lot more $$ per RGB element, if you go with all LOR stuff (e.g. CCR strings, etc), it is "less" DIY than other offerings (which is why I started with LOR--I am not DIYer). That is another thing I learned this year. Either you spend a lot of money on plug & play stuff or you spend less (but still not insignificant) money on DIY options. I am learning to be a DIYer. Just some things to think about!!