Glossary

Glossary of Terms

A

• AC - Alternating current (AC) is electrical current which reverses, or alternates, direction. The rate at which this changes varies based on your country. This is the type of current that is generally output by wall outlets.

• AC Lights - Lights which are powered by plugging into an Alternating Current (AC) Outlet. These lights generally include incandescent lights, such an mini lights, C7 bulbs, and C9 blubs. LED lights which do <bold>NOT</bold> change color also fall into this category.

B

• BBB - BeagleBone Black - A single board computer (SBC) which can be used to run the Falcon Pi Player (FPP).

• BBG - BeagleBone Green - A single board computer (SBC) which can be used to run the Falcon Pi Player (FPP).

C

• Channel -

D

• DC - Direct Current (DC) is electrical current which runs in only one direction. DC current is used to power LED lights as well as many of the controllers used to run light shows. Power supplies and wall warts convert AC power to DC power. Batteries also produce DC power. LED lights used in holiday displays generally use 5 volt, 12 volt, or 24 volt DC current.

• Differential Expansion Board -

• DMX -

• DSC - Dumb String Controller

• Dumb String (also known as Dumb Lights or Dumb RGB) - RGB LEDs in which all of the lights attached together will be the same color at all times. Individual LEDs can NOT be controlled on a dumb string.

E

• E1.31 -

F

• Falcon -

• FPP - The Falcon Player (FPP) is a lightweight, optimized, feature-rich sequence player designed to run on low-cost SBC's (Single Board Computers). It was originally created to run on the $35 Raspberry Pi, hence the middle 'P' in the short name. FPP is a software solution that you download and install on hardware which can be purchased from numerous sources around the internet. FPP aims to be controller agnostic, it can talk E1.31, DMX, Pixelnet, and Renard to hardware from multiple hardware vendors, including controller hardware from Falcon Christmas available via COOPs or in the store on FalconChristmas.com

• F16v1 -

• F16v2 -

• F16v2R -

• F16v3 -

G

H

I

• Incan or Incandescent - Light bulbs which emit light as a result of being heated, generally by passing electrical current thru a filament wire. These include bulbs such an mini lights, C7 bulbs, and C9 blubs.

J

K

L

• LED -

• LOR -

M

N

• Node -

• Null Channel -

• Nutcracker -

O

P

• Pi - See Raspberry Pi

• PiCap -

• PiHat -

• Pixelnet -

• P10 Panel -

Q

R

• RGB - Shorthand for Red, Green, and Blue LEDs. These are LEDs which can change between each of these 3 colors, or when combined give off over 16 million hues of light. RGB lights can be either dumb strings or smart strings.

• Renard -

• RPi - See Raspberry Pi

S

• Smart String (also known as smart RGB) - RGB LEDs in which each individual bulb in able to be individually controlled for the color output to the bulb. A small microchip is attached to each LED to allow for this ability.

• Strand -

• String -

• SSC - Smart String Controller

T

U

• Universe - A grouping of up to 512 channels.

• µSC (Micro SmartString Controller) -

V

W

X

xLights -

Y

Z