Anxious to hear everyone's comments on this.
Background:
We have about 30 live trees on the acre that we decorate and have historically draped LED strings in them as is fairly standard. I have for years wanted to add some additional effects to make them stand out better during the show. My twin granddaughters got a preset from Santa this year that gave me an idea for using smart strings.
Design:
Use smart strings to make spinning ornaments to hang in the trees. My idea is to mount 10 or more smart nodes and an SSC on a pvc hoop that is attached to a 12 volt motor. The ssc would be fed its signals via a slip ring so that the hoop can rotate a full 360 degrees inside a 10-12in plastic globe.
The design was done in Google Sketchup and then the video made using Sketchup's animation tool. The bulbs I used are just C9's for ease of illustration and it is the first design with a few things missing. But I think you will get the idea.
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LoginQuestions/comments:
Do you think I can add 3 more slip rings to continue the nodes to the next ornament 3-6 feet away. The next ornament would then need only the 3 slip rings for the nodes and would not need an SSC.
The globe would be hinged to provide access to the nodes and the SSC.
The hoop would be hinged to proved access to the nodes.
Need to find a cheap source for the globes and then make a stencil to add the snowflake design.
Haven't figured out how to power the motor yet.
There are 8 slip rings as all pairs in the cat 5 are used if I am reading the WIKI correctly.
EDIT:
Thinking about a modification of only 6 slip rings, three in and three out to feed the nodes. Then the ssc will not have to spin.