Wow, all these RGB rooflines deployed on both house in under 1 hour!

[taybrynn]

I wasn't feeling too confident, starting at 4 PM today, but my neighbor and I got the RGB conduit installed on both houses in well under 1 hour -- unbelievable! 

[arw01]

Wow I'm impressed, with a ladder or ?

Honestly I would be still trying to figure out where I left the ladder after 60 minutes!

[Donny M. Carter]

Crazy! Can't wait to see this years videos!

[taybrynn]

Well one of us passed up all the conduits from the ground, then we both crawled up the ladder and just started handing them.  We used two types of clip: shingle and gutter styles ... same clip, two ways to attach.  Put a clip about every 8-9 nodes.  Nodes are about 1 every 3".   We were in shock.  To be honest I haven't sequenced a thing yet, but thats going to happen last minute as usual.

[mikedbom]

what kind of clips did you use to hang conduit to the gutters?

[Jeffl]

I'm surly interested.  Installing 300 rope light clips was the most stressful part of my setup and it took far more than an hour.

[taybrynn]

So we just had a shingle style clip which was about 1" deeper than a traditional shingle clip (but thinner, like a popcicle stick making it easier to find it way under shingle gaps) ...  and made them out of some aluminum we had at my Dads place.  And then a gutter clip which just used blocks and a screw to sandwich over my favorite style of shingle clip.  He used a larger size pipe to make the clips ... which then could either be permenant installed, or installed onto the shingle or gutter style.  I opted for the non permanent variety since we have an HOA here.  Installed, you can barely tell I have lights on the house its so clean.  The SS nodes are installed into 1/2 pvc emt conduit which is drilled and double ripped on a table saw with a jig.  WHen we need a section longer than 10' again my Dad made couplers (also run through a jig) out of the larger size pipe and it works amazingly well to combine pieces together.

[taybrynn]

The homes had a relatively small amount of conduit for both of them.  The pictures below shows just one of the piles of conduits thats going onto my new half rgb megatree.  48 pieces of vertical conduit using consistent 3" spacing and ss nodes ... in both vertical and horizontal directions.  Tree is around 16-17' tall.  I haven't put it onto the tree yet, as I just finished putting all the lights into the conduit a day or two ago.  My 80 year old father designed and built this beast and its tilt up/down design has surprised me with how easy it is.  We put the lights on in the 'tilted down' position ... and the topper also ... then tilt it up.  Faster the bases and put out guy wires.  Its stable even in wind without the guys out ... but with the guys deployed its rock solid.  I've lowered it myself.  The half tree actual comes apart into fairly small pieces in about 1 hour using only a single size ratchet.

My Dad also designed the new super star topper for it.  In prior years, he had designed an 89 node rgb topper which was a variant on the holdman star with flares added.  THe supper topped adds in another star (more like the Holdman star) and a giant cross ... so the first 89 nodes are identical to our original mini toppers (reuse programming) ... and this monster jumps to 161 nodes total with the additional star and cross.  He made its enclosure out of some insulation from home depot thats like a really dense styrofoam and it weights very little.  It mounts onto the half tree top without any tools (rebar inserts into pipes, zip tie to secure just in case.

[mikedbom]

Wow that is some impressive stuff. And very high level I might add. Can't wait to see the show!

[zwiller]

Love your pics and look forward to seeing some vids.  I hope you find time to step up the sequencing!

Your Dad's topper is the bomb!  Singing face meets holdman star.  His work is top notch too. 

My setup is similar (albeit much smaller) using forms/frames but I wanted to second that that taking the time build frames/etc is a HUUUUUUGE time saver for setting up.  Not to mention, more accurate, safer, easier storage.  My minis and arches are even mounted to a frame... 

[dudehenry3]

Wow very nice