Smart String Mega Tree

[rrowan]

are you following me around the forum?

btw: thanks for the info

Rick R.

[chrisatpsu]

nope,  i just go where the new posts are..  lol

[tbone321]

I don't hear any music!!!!  Looks good but you are giving away all the excitment for your viewers for nxt year.

[chrisatpsu]

next year? that's in 3 days!!! 

[mms]

Looks good!

[chrisatpsu]

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new video

longer demo, crappy cell phone video

[rrowan]

Cool your tree is dancing also

Keep going Chris you are getting there

Cheers

Rick R.

[Gary]

EtherDongle - > SS 16port Active hub -> 8 SSC's  attached to 8 strings of 80 nodes double backed at the top, to make it appear to have 16 strings of 40 nodes.

How did you deal with the programming/sequencing? Did you use Light Show Pro which allows you to group pixels?

I was thinking of doing an RGB mega tree in a few years, but am torn between using strings or ribbons. I was leaning towards flexible ribbons because they look neat and organized with all the lights in a row (not "scattered" back and forth with some pixels even facing away from the audience), but was a bit concerned about the insane brightness annoying to the neighbors compared to regular smart strings, and the RGB color blends on the ribbons not matching an RGB blend on the strings. It seems that zip tying the lights to the line makes it look good, although I'm sure it's more work. Not any worse than using between 600 and 700 zip ties to attach the light clips and lights to my Holdman Star frame this year. Ugh.

[chrisatpsu]

I did it in vixen, and shrunk the grid so I could work on chunks at a time. The video is only a 90 sec sequence, I'm sure using the other tools would help a lot. I just didn't have time or money to learn a new product when i already missed christmas this year. The hard part is remembering that nodes 41-80 on each string run backwards.

As far as a mega tree, i went with nodes to still gives it a Christmas tree look. I felt that if I went with the strips, it would look too straight. Then, I might as well go with other geometric shapes.

I zip tied each node around the body of the node to the support rope in an attempt to keep the water out of the other side. My smart strings are out of the first batch and some even had the node PCB exposed. I plastidiped ( plus thinner) them, and even added silicone to the obvious problem nodes.

So far, so good, yet it hasnt rained ( or snowed)

I'm actually trying to figure out whether I should use smart strings on other things (like mini trees) as opposed to the costs or putting on 4 strings of leds ( rgbw) plus a controller.

[jeffcoast]

As far as using strings or flexible strips.

For a 3 dimensional tree like this one, the flexible strips would be a problem. They do not have a wide viewing angle, so you would need to try and face them all towards the viewing area. The strip itself would block the light from any strip that got turned around, like if the wind was blowing. They would be great for a 2 dimensional tree, which someone on here did make directly on his house. I used the flexible strips on my roofline, and even the ones pointing straight up were viewable from the sidewalk out front, so they are good for some situations.

[Gary]

As far as using strings or flexible strips.

For a 3 dimensional tree like this one, the flexible strips would be a problem. They do not have a wide viewing angle, so you would need to try and face them all towards the viewing area. The strip itself would block the light from any strip that got turned around, like if the wind was blowing. They would be great for a 2 dimensional tree, which someone on here did make directly on his house. I used the flexible strips on my roofline, and even the ones pointing straight up were viewable from the sidewalk out front, so they are good for some situations.

This used CCRs, which are essentially the same as Smart String ribbons. I love it!
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I was thinking of doing a 2 dimensional tree anyways, but I was wondering about what kind of viewing angle the ribbons had (i.e. if any light at all passes through the back) and you answered my question. Which leads me to another question: how flexible are the ribbons? I see people using them on arches... the most "flex-friendly" way to mount them would be on top, but the light would shine up, right? Mounting them on the front of the arches points the lights at the audience, but I think of it to be sort of like trying to bend a measuring tape not up or down like it naturally can do--but rather sideways.

[chrisatpsu]

from what people have mentioned, they mount the ribbons pn arches pointing down, instead of fighting gravity, and are still plenty bright enough to view.  i might try this approach for next year.

[jeffcoast]

Alot of people on here put the flexstrips inside of some form of tube for their arches. I don't have much of a yard to do them myself though. One person got some white dryer vent and PVC as a support for them, another used some clear flexible vinyl tube. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login has some talk about it, including pics of the dryer vent one.

If I ever make a mega tree, I will probably do one with the flexible strips like in that video. I've watched it quite a few times already, starting when I first came across all this RGB stuff last year. Like I said, I don't have any large yard, so would have to put it either in front of my garage, or on the garage roof. I put them on my roof this year and they pointed straight up and they are still very visible from the ground, so the light does distribute around the silicone jacket some, but not from the back as I said before.