Merry Christmas letters 2.0

[therealbigjim]

I finally ordered the coro I needed to build new Merry Christmas letters for my display. The old ones have held up for 5 years but are the through hole style are kind of dated. Also the color is starting to peel off of the bulbs. Rather then replace the lights I am going to build the letters in the same manner as the coro flake is constructed.  I have 16 v1 SSCs and an active hub. I had been absent this spring when the SSC mods came about, and I don't know if I have to but I plan to do the v3 mod on the SSCs. I had a coro flake in my display last year that used 48 dumb nodes and 5 dmx controllers. I liked the way it looked and it worked well. I have another coro flake and a coro star to add and plan on using the 3 led rectangle nodes from the wiki.

I said all that to ask a question.  I plan to use about 5 to 6 nodes per letter. so I figure i will use one SSC for 7 letters and one star. The SSC will be attached to the first letter with the first 5 nodes. I then want to take a male to female cat 5 cable and cut it in half. Using the female side on the hot side and the male side going to the next 5 nodes in the next letter. I place the letters 4" apart do a 1' cable will do for the connection. My worry is that the 7 connections between the letters will cause signal loss.  I did not have that problem with my dmx pumpkins that were connected with patch cables and splitters from holiday coro. They seemed to work fine. I do not have any smart nodes and plan to order them in the next few days. if anyone sees a flaw or can suggest a better approach before I spend another $300. on this project. ( to see the coro flake and my letters check out my vimeo videos)

[scharbon]

Maybe I don't understand what you are describing, but why don't you just use about 1 to 2 feet of three-cable conductor wire (I think they are stranded 20-22 gauge) to connect the nodes between letters instead of cat 5?  It seems like it would be more reliable and easier to implement.  Did I not understand your description of your plans?

Steve

[tbone321]

I think that the idea is to be able to separate the letters to allow him to store the letters separately and to aid in the ease of setup since he can set them up one at a time and then connect them together.  As for the cat 5 connectors, while they may work ok, you may be better served ordering the weatherproof 3 pin connectors from Ray.  They use a heavier connector and once connected, keep the water out and are much less subject to corrosion than Cat5 connectors which were not designed for that type of use.  If you decide to go with CAT5, I would also pick up a can of corrosion X and give the connectors a good spray as you connected them.

[scharbon]

Ahh!  I wasn't thinking about storage and taking the letters apart.

+1 on using the connectors.

Steve

[therealbigjim]

Thank you for the thoughts. Yes I want to be able to have each letter separate for storage. I did not even think about Rays connectors so thanks for that. Any thoughts if there will be an issue with the number of connections ?  also I wanted to add the link to my coro flake You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

[tbone321]

I really doubt that those connections would cause much of an issue.  The signal is regenerated between each node so multiple connectors are not a real issue there and I doubt that there would be enough of a voltage drop to cause issues but if it does, just inject power on the other end to eliminate that.

[therealbigjim]

ok cool

[zwiller]

I agree with tbone.  That said, I would prefer them to be made in 3 sections that mount together and cannot imagine it wouldn't be that much difficult to store them in sections. 

1: Merry 2.[ ]Chris 3. tmas.

Easier to mount/tear down, less connectors, better spacing/straighter.  Then again, I am a 3rd generation sign maker. 

[zwiller]

Your arches are HUUUGE!  Nice work with the flake and layout. 

Not sure if you've decided yet, but I would probably use modules and not nodes for a your sign.  I think the 4 led modules in 2 rows would be cool for a sign as large as yours.  In addition, I would probably try to work a module count that is the same for each letter so you could program SSC in group mode, then the whole sign is 13 channels rgb (36). 

[therealbigjim]

Thanks, the arches are 2- 8' sections of 4' black landscape pipe with 200 warm white leds per 18" section.
 When I said node I was actually meaning the 3 led rectangle. from the wiki. I used the dumb version in my coro flake last year. Your idea about leaving several letters connected would be less work but where  I have to store then is in a very tight corner of my garage attic that only allows for one letter at a time to be passed through at a time. That is the main reason for having a connector between each one. Building the new Letters and finishing my 2nd coro flake and the star have me thinking about investing in another shed. The 15 or 20 bins of Christmas stuff in my attic are getting to be troublesome due to disk fusion surgery 2 years ago, it would be nice just to dolly the bin to the front yard and not have to get a neighbor to help me pass it down the folding attic access.   

[loveroflife96]

Extra shed sounds nice.  Who's doing the Coop for the DIY Christmas Light Storage shed?  I'm in!  I feel your paid as I currently climb up and down that attic ladder to get all the boxes down every year.  And it seems like every year there are more and more up there!

Thinking about doing a "MERRY CHRISTMAS" sign myself....

Duane

[tbone321]

I am also looking into building a shed for Christmas and Halloween decorations.  I am pretty much out of space and it would be MUCH easier getting to put the wire frames away without breaking them down first.  In the future, I intend to build some much larger display items but currently, I have no place to store them.

[smeighan]

I installed 4 of these into the ceiling of my garage

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snowblower, lawnmower, extra tires, Christmas displays all go on them. I use my electric drill to raise and lower them.

[therealbigjim]

Smeigham, I made a snap judgement and said to my self that would not work because I have 14' celing height. But then I looked at the link and I see it rases and lowers.   

[tbone321]

They would block my lighting in the front of the garage which is bad enough already.  I can't put them in the back half as the garage door openers and dor tracks would cause an issue so I guess that it's back to the new shed idea.