Dimming house lights

[magic]

Hey Everone,

I have a question...We are going to install a dimmer into dim our outside house lighting on the garage, etc. and I wanted to be able to animate the dimming sequence of the lights around Halloween, to basically imitate a spooky "Flickering" effect. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to do this? I suppose I'd have to have the ability to hook them up to a DMX controller, but I'd like to make it very simple if possible...

well thank you in advance for any advice on this!

[SerraAva]

You might want to look for a dimmer with built in chases/sound activated mode to do this without a console. I would post some links, but rather hard on the 2.5" screen I am working with right now, lol. Check Chaulvet, Elation, NSI, and/or AMDJ.
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[mc2880]

It depends on how many channels you want the chase and what your budget is.

There are cheap 4ch NSI packs that would do the trick with some sort of dmx interface. The best flame or flicker effect is built into the ET Backpack dimmers. They are more expensive per channel than a pack, but are very usefull. I wouldn't have the lights on a dimmer year round. You could make a hanging cord patch and plug in the dimmer when you need it, otherwise have it on a switch.

There are cheap programmable DMX entry stations which can be programmed by any DMX source and will run any cheap 4ch shoebox dimmer you get.

[magic]

Yeah this is my parents house I'm doing this to and I want it to look normal the rest of the year, I think I can picture what you're saying the patch cord, sounds like what I want to do...

This all came about because my dad wanted to be able to dim the lights if they're too bright for holiday lights, etc. and I came up with the option to be able to have them flicker around halloween...So we would want the dim option the rest of the year, but not the flicker part.

thanks!

[lighttechie5948]

I just did a guy's christmas lights at his parent's house. We ran all of the strings of lights through his living room window into 2 NXI dimmer packs and programmed a light show on an express 48/96 (yes....we used a 48/96 that has 192 channels to control 8 dimmer oututs.)

Im sure this is much more than what you were thinking of. But, an idea non the less.

PS: he was friends with the rental director at a rental company so the normal price of $2000 only cost him a mere $75.

~Joe

[1kfresnel]

I had around the shop a little 4-channel dimmer/chaser unit that might just fit the bill. It had options for timed, audio activated, etc. I'll see if I can dig it up and get the name of it.

Originally Posted by mc2880

There are cheap programmable DMX entry stations which can be programmed by any DMX source and will run any cheap 4ch shoebox dimmer you get.

mc, What's the cheapest you've found these entry stations. I'm in the market for a few and I've only see about $500 a pop. Any pointers? Thanks.

An Express 48/96 for christmas lights, nice!

[mc2880]

Originally Posted by 1kfresnel

mc, What's the cheapest you've found these entry stations. I'm in the market for a few and I've only see about $500 a pop. Any pointers? Thanks.

Interactive Technologies makes a new one, I'm not even sure if it's released, it's not on the website. It's called the SceneStation, I would sell the demo Kit for around $644CDN, but that is more than just the entry station. Unfortunately the whole cross bored thing and failing dollar have jacked up the price. You should see these avilable in the US for well under $500. $455 would be a reasonable price USD for the Demo Kit, expecting that just the station would be under that.


Have you looked at the CueMaster stations by Genlyte (look at Entertainment Technologies to purchase)? They are are pretty **** usefull, they've got lots of tricks up their sleeves.