Information About our Display and Weather
December 11th, 2015
Folks – with rain in the forecast over the next several days, in particular, Sunday, we wanted to take a moment to explain a few things about our display and how it operates in weather.
Unlike most static lighs, our display is computer operated and uses software and high voltage controller boxes to control the lights. The electrical requirements for our show require us to have water sensing (GFCI) outdoor outlets in place and to use high grade electical cords meant for wet conditions.
Rain is a particularly great problem for our show as the very nature of a GFCI outlet is to trip (or turn off) the outlet with any presence of water. With so many cords, connections and open ends in our display, it is impossible to prevent water from entering the system. That’s where the GFCI do their job – they shut down electricity and prevent the operation of the lights until water is removed from the system. It protects the electronics and protects all of us. Sometimes we can isolate this to one element and present the rest of the show with that element disabled if we can discover where the water is entering the system. Sometimes it requires us to disable the entire show. Amount of rain, how hard it falls and how much falls also contributes to how the system reacts.
Snow is not nearly as much a problem for us as snow has to have a very high water content to be a problem for the display.
With all of that as background information we wanted all of you to understand that while you may be able to run your lights (and your neighbors may be able to) in the rain – we may or may not be able to.
When in doubt, please check this website OR our Facebook page. We will always post when the show is offline as we never want someone to come out and be disappointed!
May you continue to find peace and joy this Christmas season
– The Larson’s
New Hope forecast
