Site Upgrade or not?

What do you think we should do about the site?

  • Stay with what we have

    Votes: 8 20.5%

  • Upgrade to newer forum software

    Votes: 31 79.5%
  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .
I hope that the site stays in place and I will continue to pay my yearly dues. I started my blinky flashy hobby thanks to this site and would have never been able to do it without the tremendous amount of information on this site and from many of its members.
It would be a great loss to lose all of the valuable information contained here. Thanks for all you Do!
Ricky
 
I totally agree!
without this site, I Never would have learned all I have about this fascinating hobby.
 
BTW....

One of the nice things about VB5 is the PM system. It allows uploading photos, videos, executables, whatever you set up.

How many times have you wished you could add a photo or a ZIP file into a pm here on the forum???
 
Who ever said xenforo cannot migrate content from vB is wrong. I would not even consider vBulletin at this point. I think xenforo has a superior product and you see a lot of larger forums migrating away from vB towards xenforo. I run a medium size xenforo site for a non profit and it?s been nothing but smooth sailing. If you need help with an upgrade / migration to Xenforo, I can probably help out after the new years. Let me know.
 
I missed the vote, but upgrade is probably needed. The main concern is the loss of the old posts, we can not let that happen, there is way too much data here.
 
I've been contemplating whether or not to post this but I feel like I need to.

I think that part of what makes this site so valuable to both newcomers to the hobby and people who have been doing it for a while is being able to interact and discuss needs with other people who have the skills to build the software and hardware that make this hobby possible. When I first came to doityourselfchristmas it was common place for members of the community to design some hardware to fill a need and offer the board electrical schematics and eagle/gerber files as well as allow others to buy some boards from them. Somewhere along the way hardware designers seem to have stopped sharing their designs; I believe due to how others quickly take all that work and produce competing boards of the same design and cut the original creator out of the iterative process and any proceeds for their expertise and time spent.

Group Buys seem to have died out as a result of this trend. There is less of a reason to have a Group Buy if no one is willing to sell boards or kits or even so much as share the bill of materials for a board. Since Group Buys drove the supporting membership purchases, it sounds like the site is getting closer to being in trouble. The other related reason for not having as many Group Buys is that many of the people here have now built up their shows to the largest point and they don't have a need to buy large quantities of new hardware since they already have things like Renard, SSR, and Pixel Controllers.

Now it's difficult to even get basic information like a schematic of the necessary components to drive WS2811 pixels from some generic UART source. Since that would enable someone to build their own pixel driving devices, that information is guarded leaving newcomers doing things like using Arduino hooked to commercial solid state relay boards.

My modest proposal to improve the situation:
Share your knowledge and teach new people how you made what you designed and why. I fear that as makers of the hardware leave the hobby for one life reason or another, the loss will leave the rest of us unable to create the necessary hardware and only commercially produced products will be left. While I don't have anything against those, it does mean that no one will be coming here to do a Group Buy to get costs down, and that drops the website supporting memberships. I don't know what to do about the habit some people have of taking hardware designs and producing them without regards to the creator of that design, but from where I sit that is slowly killing this hobby.
 
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Hi Alfred.

I have seen a similar trend, but not all of us are trying to hide things. In many cases, the latest designs need specialized tools (well beyond a simple soldering iron) to assemble. I have an smd oven but I suspect I am an exception. Many people likely do not even know what an smd oven is or how useful it is. With the recent focus on software to replace many of the functions once incorporated into HW designs, the HW design is simplified to a point where (to use your example) for a pixel driver it is easier to buy an Famp and attach it to an Arduino than it is to make your own board. When you are just plugging things together, the usefulness of a schematic is diminished.
 
I would love to see the site upgraded, but also agree we should not lose history as its extremely valuable (even the old posts).
 
I haven't following this...busy with work and life. BUT in the upgrade, will the older posts remain available? I often search for answers there before asking a question. As far as sharing hardware designs, most the time I think this is so simple and obvious, why share? But thats the mindset of an old engineer that everything is obvious. For example, I was trying to find a solution to control some AC props but keep it the realm of pixels. So I took a worldchip pixel driver and wired it to a SSR board. So a signal pixel is 3 channels...and now I can control those with the R G B channels. Simple, cheap and works. Schematic? Sure if anyone is interested. I took some amazon snowflakes that were prelit with white LEDs, and drove them from a pixel driver. Now I have 8 snowflakes that are controlled in much the same way. Simple....to me at least.
 
I don't think people are interesting ordering parts and picking up a solder iron these days because of the easy access to (relatively inexpensive) controllers and related devices from the internet. There was a time when designing and ordering boards, buying parts and soldering components onto the boards was necessary because they weren't commercially available, but those days are gone. This would explain the almost complete lack of interest in group buys.
 
Phil

yes, I agree. Same thing with Ham radio, nobody builds anything when you can purchase.

But, without the inventors, the innovators, the DIY folks who like to build, create, make better, the other 90% of the hobby would not have all of the wonderful controllers and such to purchase and make the lights flash and dance. But not everyone is capable of doing design work. So those who can't appreciate those who can. I'm still a newbie in this only having built my mounted pixels about 4 years ago after tinkering with mounting and prebuilding for 2 years prior. I buy the ESpixelsticks because they are a reasonable cost. Can I lay out my own board to create the same? Sure, but I'll spend the time building new props and buy the true and tested controllers.

Maybe what we need is a new subject/forum (or is there one?) of....I wish there was something that does this....because I think there are those who have no clue how to design or build, but have creative ideas. Combined with those who can do 3D CAD (again...newbie on Solidworks), 3D print, design boards, build circuits...we can perhaps bring out new fun things?
 
There are also other aspects to the hobby than building hardware - the design the props, putting them together to create the stage, and sequencing. Without the need to design/build hardware and firmware there is much more time available to do other things (and also the need for more time as the shows become larger).
 
One downside to this emphasis on buying instead of building is that little gadgets that would help setup and test shows never get built, or at least never distributed. An example of this is would be a hand-held LED string tester or a pixel splitter (aka 25/50/75-unit null pixel) never come to fruition. If something can't be purchased from China, it never exists.
 
fabiousa7 said:
I would love to see the site upgraded, but also agree we should not lose history as its extremely valuable (even the old posts).
Click to expand...

I agree with this statement! I still have some Renard boards that I use and often refer to the WIKI for troubleshooting and repairs.
 
OK, all (or at least "most") of the displays are setup, running, and hopefully doing very well. It is time to push the "upgrade" button.
 
I plan on waiting until after the new year. Any upgrade usually requires significant support time and I do not have hours to sit at the PC to fix issues during the season.
 
I plan on moving to Xenforo in the near future. The entire site should import into the Xenforo forums. I will keep this forum installed but turned off to the public so save the data should anything go wrong. If there is any data, posts or pictures you feel you can not live without I suggest you make a copy for yourself just incase.

I do not know the exact day of the upgrade but it should not bee too far into the future. I am hoping for sooner rather than later but want to give everyone time to download anything they may need.
 
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