mega tree..

[tmtfield]

could someone send some pics of the built mini trees? I was trying to use some small 2.5' trees I bought but they look like crap..and let me know how many lights you put on each tree.. I am using green, white, and red..thanks

When I built my mini-trees I had one rule in mind; they must look good during the day.
I started with an unmodified 3' tomatoe cage and wrapped each one with 3 lengths of green garland from Big Lots. The Garland comes in 12' legnths and was $.99 per lenght. Next I used 2 - 70count  of red, green, and white LED's for a total of 320 total lights. I wire tied the light strings to the garland which was wire tied to the cage. I then found 10-packs of red velvet 3" christmas bows at K-Mart for .99 per 10-pack. I used 20 red bows per tree. During the assembly process I left 4" of the tomatoe cage exposed at the top.  I then had my wife make 10" bows out of gold ribbon and gold craft wire. I used a 20count incan light string on the inside of the golden bow. This bow was then attached to the mini tree as a 4th channel topper.

I was very pleased with the way that these came out. They met my rule for daytime asthetics, and added a nice touch to the light show.
I will post some pics when I get a chance.

Hope this gives a few ideas....... Good Luck
Tim

[sirloinofbeef001]

thats a great Idea ... I'm getting really excited about christmas. I'm about to tinkle myself...

[magic8192]

I use the jump megatree pole.  It has a concrete filled box for the base with eyebolts in the concrete to tie down to rebar.   Never had any problems with the stability of the pole.   I used 3 colors green, red, clear with  15 channels per color and 3 strands of lights per color.  135 strands and 45 channels.

This year, I am going down to 10 channels per color and 4 strings per channel.  30 channels, 120 strands. 

Rebar is your friend.  I use it for just about everything.  I buy it in 20 ft lengths at metal supply stores and cut it to the lengths that I need with a sawzall.

[CB]

I have made my mini trees at about 28" to 30" , then my not as small ones using the larger gauge tomato cages, thes are about 4.5' tall then I have a couple of med trees that are the pvc pipe variety with cmu blocks for the base (no guy wires) with 16 channels and two colors.  Then I have two mega trees one if 32' tall and has guy wires at 3 locations with 48 channels (clear, gold, green and multi), the other is a 19' spiral mega tree that has 24 channels with three colors.

I did a couple of the mini trees with garland but decided that night time was my preferred effect so I have just lights now.

[rrowan]

I'll toss my micro trees into the mix

I like how they came out (2nd year using them). Currently I have 16 trees made with 1/2 inch pvc across my front yard and each tree has 100ct mini lights in red and green. My plan is to remove the SSR4s and mini lights to be replaced by SSC and Pixel nodes most likely in string mode.

Here is the link to see the pictures


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Cheers

Rick R.

[sirloinofbeef001]

Thanks for all the help.. You ppl are great.

[CB]

Those are nice Rick; after seeing your pic I just had to get mine out of storage and now I started installing single strobes at the top of each with some SPT2 wire dedicated to the top.  Somehow I got that idea after seeing your pic.  Mine will now be downhill from the arches and will blink and flash.

Here I was trying to help with ideas and just added more work for myself.  I blame you all, and for that I thank you.

Corey

[mokeefe]

My mini-trees were the first things I built when I started this 5 years ago.  They were based on some idea I found on the web.  I used the wire easels you can find at craft stores like AC Moore (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login). You just zip tie the legs to stay open and then wrap and zip tie the strings of lights.  Since channels were at a premium back then I used 3 strings of 100 clears on each tree.  If I did it over I'd probably set them up with 3 colors (and 3 channels).  You can stack 2 or 3 of the trees when you store them so that helps.  They've held up fine over the years.

-Mike

[sirloinofbeef001]

rick, are your mold blown figures on all the time or on a le?

[rrowan]

rick, are your mold blown figures on all the time or on a le?

They are controlled by a FreeStyle and SSR4s, everything in my yard is Lynx controlled.

Cheers

Rick R.

[jnealand]

My mini-trees were the first things I built when I started this 5 years ago.  They were based on some idea I found on the web.  I used the wire easels you can find at craft stores like AC Moore (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login). You just zip tie the legs to stay open and then wrap and zip tie the strings of lights.  Since channels were at a premium back then I used 3 strings of 100 clears on each tree.  If I did it over I'd probably set them up with 3 colors (and 3 channels).  You can stack 2 or 3 of the trees when you store them so that helps.  They've held up fine over the years.

-Mike

I also did my mini trees on floral easels.  You can get them lots of places, Joannes, Garden Ridge, others.  I put 3 strings of 100 on them, one string each of red, green, clear.  I don't know how I could even put more lights on them than I have now.  I have 16 of them and plan to replace the lights with LEDs for next year.  These are the biggest users of power in my display.  If all of them are on (all 3 colors) which would be 4800 lights I measure over 18 amps being used.  By contrast with all Leds I have more than that on my house and they pull only a little over 2 amps.  Good thing the minis are always blinking and I seldom have all the colors on at once.

[sirloinofbeef001]

with this being my first real light show, I've been looking and trying different things..My wife bought me some 2.5' green christmas trees, I crammed 360 incans on it and with the solid branches, the lights seem dim so I;m gonna do the easel trick.. thanks for the idea..