musht

For conservative PSU sizing reckon on 60mA a pixel, that's RGB at full , very rare in use, they are bright, always running patterns or colours. Battery power figure consumption being nearer 15-20mA a pixel. Couple of hundred in string, power both ends, any longer than that power injection midway somewhere. https://youtu.be/YuEmTs_m7f4 ping pong balls, quick touch with soldering iron, hot melt or silicone helps attach. Icicles and bulb shapes, 3d print in clear TPU in vase mode, quick but one by one... Thanks as well to other posters, some interesting ideas

Pixels? Not great for the classic warm white look , but great for multicolour. On car battery , regulated might be slightly better but resistor are in stock, reputable UK vendor https://buildalightshow.com/pixels/1205-ws2811-pixels-12v-100-count-bullet-resistor-pigtails-.html Hot glue on ping pong balls or 3d printed icicles if 100 looks a bit sparse on the tree, Control with sub tenner bluetooth SP105/108e controller from Amazon or Wled on ESP32 on WiFi.

Dont think so, DMX on K and T series is for output and addressing the weird DMX pixels, kind of stuck with LEDedit for control. DMXKing LeDMX will trigger pixel playback from DMX https://dmxking.com/led-pixel-control/ledmx4-pro as will Tim`s all in one box solution https://www.digitaltape.co.uk/apd-2-500-12v-art Led Strip Studio https://ledstripstudio.com/spi-led-controller/ Bigger list http://www.awesomeledlist.com

Halfords Pro line , decent quality worth buying, also has advantage of a warranty that's claimable, straight swap in shop for even questionably used tools.... Even if your a regular Snap On customer find warranty is lifetime of tool, not your lifetime.Snap On corporate states its main business as a leading provider of in workplace finance, not tool making. Ludicrously priced coarse ratchets spring to mind. King Dick is still around if want to buy Blitish, think mainly forged in Taiwan. Bahco made in PRC but decent. Decent six sided sockets and quality spanners are worth the money, they fit better and far less liable to round fasteners. Unless it's Snap On level, polished chrome peels off and makes for loose fit, only use black impact sockets in impact drivers.

Jon Erik Hexum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum

Cameo is a brand of Adam Hall , famous for their master/ slave labelling on lites in simpler times.

Other gotcha with 20+ way drivers is max load total, 24 x 3A = 72A , not along those PCB tracks it wont. Driver and possibly smaller PSU per strip or revisit pixels , lot simpler and easier.

5V is a massive advantage of pixel tape for wire free use, USB power banks, usual limit of 2.1A per port excepted, are easier than NiCd banks, lipo are a whole different world of safety. WLed has become stock answer for anything with relatively low pixel count, https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED https://www.welcometothefuture.one/blog/wled-get-started Crowd sourced , user editable, www.awesomeledlist.com for a broader list of pixel stuff. Level shifter or sacrificial pixel right beside the ESP to act as a shifter , kind of combo: https://hackaday.com/2017/01/20/cheating-at-5v-ws2812-control-to-use-a-3-3v-data-line/

Not necessarily cause and effect. Dry eyes could be from any number of issues. Not a direct effect on your retina, which is the sensor array internally at the back of your eye. Laser damage to your retina would be picked up by an optometrist. Any focussed beam of light isn't good for direct exposure to your eyes. Risk presented is factor of power density and exposure time. Class 4 lasers have high power density, very short exposure time to damage. It is possible to safely crowd scan with high power density .It is also possible to cause permanent eye damage with a Class 2 laser. Some low cost,nominally low power lasers, leak high power , invisible, infra red from the aperture in a much wider cone than the main beam. Photonlexicon.com forums is a laser specific group. LEDs also present a high power density light source, particularly UV and near UV blacklites ,should be treated with certain amount of care to avoid people staring into the things at short range. Strobes can be very effective but very uncomfortable for some. Fog fluid drys out breathable air. Just running through some of the possiblitys , hope you're feeling better by now.

Secondlife Storage is other large 18650 database,from the DIY powerwall crew ripping redundant laptop battery packs. https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?pages/cell-database/ Thing to remember is 18650 is a package size not a specification, bit like looking for a TO220 transistor. Fogstar cater to vaping market with need for very high discharge rates, Anker brand USB banks can be found with high quality cells that are cheaper than buying cells alone, but other end of scale, low discharge rate. Avoid anything with Ultra in the name , like Ultrafire or the AAA cells in 18650 sleeves packed with sand. Sure Clive has a video somewhere on hilarious Ebay rechargeable capacity claims, the 9900mAH AA`s ;-) Edit from quick glance, real top end on an 18650 is around 4200, 9900 from appropriately named GTF..... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284400788416

https://www.fogstar.co.uk https://www.megacellmonitor.com/CellTypes

Physcedelic light show preservation and Optikinetics solar 250 appreciation groups on Facebook

Seems like someone translating old style contract, hirer responsible for consumables, like lamps. New contract just adds an allowance in at new prices. Recording contracts used to use a clawback for damaged in transit pressings when shellac 78s were fragile, they kept the clawback in when damage free vinyl took over... Mortality rate sounds extreme, are other hirers losing a lite every 3 weeks? Certainly be talking to Selecon directly about perceived damage to their reputation.

Wonder if one of reasons not found in UK often, apart from the knock off connotations,is they are an old design and can,as pointed out, get an original second hand for much the same money.

"apply power, shove the faders and lights come up" TBH possibly biggest gotcha with these, good switches,and there's a lot of them,cost money, same with faders. Control surfaces with decent components are not cheap to assemble. To hit a price point ,a lot has been ,er,cost engineered.To look like the right thing,it's frustrating to buy something that isn't quite the real thing...

"There Is Nothing in This World That Someone Cannot Make a Little Worse and Sell a Little Cheaper" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/05/21/cheap/ Kinda covers why its cheap. Year of no income,apart from profiting from grey imports, want faders like an expensive hardware desk , only got 500 quid for controls,because have a scaff grid in rented premises with LED flat panels and moving lites for filming commercial presentations.... It`s not a pitch seem to be getting much sympathy with Paul.

Power measured at sparkplug ? In this case measured as total output of LED before the optics. Then through a mobile phone LCD and lens. TBH it's still brighter than a Solar250.

Polarizers were extra dim:-) Wheels still collectable, including all the Gogo bar specials :-),Orion, Pluto, Project as well as Optikinetics. Let`s be honest they are collectables, time moves on. But the art of wheels ain`t dead https://www.bubblevision.uk/ Take advantage of Amazon`s excellent return policy, if needed, this type was mentioned in a smaller projectors thread below, for couple of hundred quid get a couple, with change. Looking through reviews, almost anything on Amazon TBH, buying 2 at a time may entitle you for a direct cashback from the seller in return for a 5 star review ;-) https://www.amazon.co.uk/ELEPHAS-Projector-Portable-Display-Compatible/dp/B07N39NDDB/ run something like this on a phone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psperl.prjM only catch being relatively narrow beam,cover it with more than one projector within budget, use a `laser` style effects app on the phone. Or a used ultra short throw , with a new lamp..., in budget , depends on mounting needs https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EPSON-EB-470-ULTRA-SHORT-THROW-2600-LUMENS-PROJECTOR-NEW-LAMP-HDMI-USB/114726654173?epid=1439959383&hash=item1ab63dd0dd:g:KD8AAOSwraBgTkGU

Even a cheap video projector will be brighter than an Opti 250 nowadays

Tinkercad, also handy Arduino simulator same site. Openscad if you can get on with command line drawing. SketchUp is a pain for 3d printing, it's a surface modeller and things can become non solid on export as 3D model. Fusion360 for complex creations. 3dhubs.com and treatstock.co.uk for general printing . Shapeways , imaterialise for exotic materials. 3d design is an iterative process, code for multiple versions till final. Under 200 quid gets those iterations in your hands in hours rather than days.

The issue is at other end of the cable, good as am sure the Sundial is , its value comes from its interface and load abilities,dimming principle is the same as Vari-Light, its quite costly for dimming 24W in a village hall. Trying different lamps may yield better results, as mentioned Philips Warm Glow, there is a 6W , sure there are now equally as good lamps from other makers, Megaman used to be an innovator. If could nail down a better user interface than a phone app, wifi bridge(?) , IoT, Smart bulbs, dim to zero , variable colour and colour temp, no rewiring needed, about a tenner each.

Never get to absolute zero on mains dimmable LED. Though some lamps are a lot better than others, particularly like Philips Warm Glow, dim spectacularly well, not sure get as big as 6W.

Rapid are free above 25 , 3.99 below. Still competitive , usually, now part of Conrad.de https://www.rapidonline.com/

Iron clad bits cavitate after filing, not reccomended but gets a job done. Multicore tip cleaner, tiny tin is about 7 quid, great at getting what wet sponge won't shift. Lead free ,silver loaded, flavour is more expensive but flows better. Lead is better unless it's lead free already. Big fan of Rapid Electronics own brand solders. Flux pen, helps a lot.

FR paper lanterns not uncommon https://www.candlebagsuk.co.uk/12inch-fire-proof-paper-hanging-lanterns-30cm-white.html