DiyLightAnimation
Software => Nutcracker: RGB Effects Builder => Topic started by: smeighan on December 12, 2012,
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I have been asked by a few eople how i built my megatree.
I used 3" abs plastic for the base and pole. I have 60 smart rgb nodes in the coro star on top.
I attached my 20 x 120 flex strips to 1/2" emt pipe. I drove a 3" oak dowel into each end of the emt. On the bottom i screwed eye bolts. On the top i screwed in eye hooks.
I recorded two videos describing the tree.
This week we had 50 mph winds and the tree didnt move at all. We will see if i get higher winds. For now, i am happy it all came out.
i like the fact that i can easily (less than 30 seconds) remove any segment from the tree if i have to repair any bad pixels.
Here are links to two videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4qY3DmR_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1z4TkZDck
thanks
sean
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Nicely done, thanks for sharing.
Look forward to some video of your show. 8)
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Sean,
Nicely done. Is the topper wood?
I need to do a behind the scenes video of my layout (I have a standard megatree with 32 strands of LED strings -- not smart this year) and only 10' tall (I live in a townhouse so anything larger would be overkill).
Definitely want to see videos of your show this year. I will be posting mine this weekend. I am working on a new website called GustafsonLights.com for my show.
Kurt
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Very nice Sean.
Thanks for the info.
Steve
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Excellent work and great video. Thanks Sean !!
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Sean,
Nicely done. Is the topper wood?
I need to do a behind the scenes video of my layout (I have a standard megatree with 32 strands of LED strings -- not smart this year) and only 10' tall (I live in a townhouse so anything larger would be overkill).
Definitely want to see videos of your show this year. I will be posting mine this weekend. I am working on a new website called GustafsonLights.com for my show.
Kurt
Yeah, the topper was two sheets of 1/2" plywood. I painted them with Kilz, then assembled them. I finally painted them with exterior house paint. 20 eye bolts , nuts on both sides went and covered about 190 degrees.
On the top of the tree i have two steel cables (dog run , plastic coated cables) that attach from the topper down to a 5/16 x 4" eye-bolt. These two cables counter the force of the 20 emt's. I was afraid i would break the flange. You can see the 3" flange i used to attach the 1" plywood disk in the below images
Here are some pics of the topper
First picture shows the 1" thick oak board that i put down the 3" pipe. The purpose of this is for the 3/4" pvc pipe attached to the star can fit into the hole in the center.
(http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/IMG_0118a.jpg)
Here shows how the star will fit into the topper. Note: I have not yet glued the front coro onto the star. You can see the sides are 1" high , instead of the original 3".
(http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/IMG_0115a.jpg)
and here you can see i painted the tops of teh 20 eye-bolts yellow. This helps me see them when i am holding teh emt and trying to attach the hooks into them.
Note the entire weight of the tree would be supported by the plastic flange. Worried of the stress of this force, i have two eyebolts on the back that will counter this force.
so far, nothing has broken.
(http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/IMG_0116a.jpg)
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Wow, so your topper has just the rectangular nodes mounted straight on it and they are ok (exposed) in the snow, etc ? Also, I noticed your flex strips will just zip tied to the EMT, which is great. I was putting mine in PVC tubing, but doing so was kind of a pain. I did find that 1" OD x 3/4 ID PVC clear tubing fits the strips like a dream and provides considerable protecting to the strips ... but also adds considerable cost.
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Wow, so your topper has just the rectangular nodes mounted straight on it and they are ok (exposed) in the snow, etc ? Also, I noticed your flex strips will just zip tied to the EMT, which is great. I was putting mine in PVC tubing, but doing so was kind of a pain. I did find that 1" OD x 3/4 ID PVC clear tubing fits the strips like a dream and provides considerable protecting to the strips ... but also adds considerable cost.
I believe the flex strips are rated IP68, which will do fine for the weather.
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Wow, so your topper has just the rectangular nodes mounted straight on it and they are ok (exposed) in the snow, etc ? Also, I noticed your flex strips will just zip tied to the EMT, which is great. I was putting mine in PVC tubing, but doing so was kind of a pain. I did find that 1" OD x 3/4 ID PVC clear tubing fits the strips like a dream and provides considerable protecting to the strips ... but also adds considerable cost.
Well, not quite.
I ordered the star from holidaaycoro. 60 dumb rectangle nodes. 3 dmx controllers, 2 power supplies. I forgot i needed their special programmer to set the channel numbers for the dmx controllers. I ordered thatmid november. David, sent an email and said the order of controllers from China had been lost. It might take 2-3 weeks to get a replacement order. Turns out he somehow got them in 5 days. But i made the decision to remove the dumb rectangle nodes and replace them with smart nodes i ordered for something else.
I am VERY happy i did this.
I now only needed 1 cat 5 cable going up to the topper, not 110v and cat 5.
i could remove 2 pretty heavy power supllies from teh star and 3 medium heavy dmx controllers. I then decided that io liked the look of the smart strings with a more narrow thickness. So the star went from 3" thick to 1" thick.
Although the
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/TM1804-IC-led-pixel-module-DC12V-input-20pcs-a-string/701799_374338740.html?_componentAcceptorEnabled_=false
look waterproof, i took no chances and have them encased in coro and sealed all cables going into the star.
Now i did have to scrape off 60 dumb rgb nodes and 3 dmx controlelrs. The DMX controllers removed part of the coro so i put epoxy there to strengthen it.
(http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/IMG_0104a.jpg)
After replacing all the nodes with smart rgb , i then decided that i liked the look with 1" high sides. Personal preference.
http://youtu.be/bR9fXGGNYec
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Very nice ... and interesting back story.
I agree, the smart strings setup is far cleaner than the DMX controllers and the power supplies ... but I do love the stuff holidaycoro has done and David is second to none in his support, documentation, service, etc.
My original 2-ch rope light star topper from CLS is really looking outdated these days ... since the RGB toppers can do so much more !!
What kind of model in nutcracker to you use to sequence the start topper with?
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Very clean and nicely done! Really starts the wheels turning! ;) Thanks for sharing!!!
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Any show videos?
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Try nutcracker123.com. I think that is where Sean's show stuff is.
Kurt
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Great job on the tree, Sean!
Your talent is broad and wide. :) Music, programming, and construction.
wow.
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Try nutcracker123.com. I think that is where Sean's show stuff is.
Kurt
Pictures, but no videos yet. im sure he is busy so i will be patient.
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Try nutcracker123.com. I think that is where Sean's show stuff is.
Kurt
Pictures, but no videos yet. im sure he is busy so i will be patient.
I have not made a video yet. I first used my still camera, it dodnt work very well.
I will have my display up until jan 11th. I will take a video before taking it down.
thanks
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Sean,
I completely understand. My first couple of videos this year were terrible. I have since replaced them and have yet to finish posting (to Vimeo) the rest of my show. I will -- hopefully -- get that done this weekend.
Kurt
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Sean I have some videos of your show, but not he entire thing. But it does show how great it looks!
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And as usual, the video does not reflect how good it really looks.
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Sean I have some videos of your show, but not he entire thing. But it does show how great it looks!
Scott; feel free to post what you have. I will get a video before this next week. I want to remember this season.
People need to know i did not use any sequencers this year
I just had Nutcracker => vix file => xlights
This is because i was still building things the first week of december. Hopefully this next season i will be able to start early enough.
The tree looks awesome, that was a focus this year. get it built.
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Wow, you did a nice job on building your tree. I am curious what type of electronics you used for driving each string. It looks like you supplied power over the Ethernet cable to each of the controllers. Also, curious what is in the two big boxes at the base. I assume it is power, and some other electronics.
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Wow, you did a nice job on building your tree. I am curious what type of electronics you used for driving each string. It looks like you supplied power over the Ethernet cable to each of the controllers. Also, curious what is in the two big boxes at the base. I assume it is power, and some other electronics.
my show had 2 active hubs, one passive. 16 ports each
The hubs and the power supply are in the battery cases i bought from walmart. this maed them waterproof.
Since i am using an etherdongle and 32 smart string controllers v3, the power is carried over the cables.
my half megatree was 20x120 flex strips.
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I need to find my video of Sean' tree -- it was stunning ... and honestly everything he did last year in such a short time, quite unbelievable!
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did you use 3/4 emt or 1/2? did you use regular emt couplers to connect the 2 sections of pipe? I like your idea and will implement it in my new mega tree build. I am using 20 strings of 50 nodes so I will be at about 15' per section
thanks for all your hard work and dedication to helping others.
duane
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did you use 3/4 emt or 1/2? did you use regular emt couplers to connect the 2 sections of pipe? I like your idea and will implement it in my new mega tree build. I am using 20 strings of 50 nodes so I will be at about 15' per section
thanks for all your hard work and dedication to helping others.
duane
i used 1/2" metal emt. i used normal emt connectors to hold them. i drove a 3" piece of oak doweling into each end.
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Sean,
if the ground has an x and y axis, I understand how you adjust the angle for one direction (say x axis), How do you adjust in the other direction (y axis)?
I have been asked by a few eople how i built my megatree.
I used 3" abs plastic for the base and pole. I have 60 smart rgb nodes in the coro star on top.
I attached my 20 x 120 flex strips to 1/2" emt pipe. I drove a 3" oak dowel into each end of the emt. On the bottom i screwed eye bolts. On the top i screwed in eye hooks.
I recorded two videos describing the tree.
This week we had 50 mph winds and the tree didnt move at all. We will see if i get higher winds. For now, i am happy it all came out.
i like the fact that i can easily (less than 30 seconds) remove any segment from the tree if i have to repair any bad pixels.
Here are links to two videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4qY3DmR_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1z4TkZDck
thanks
sean
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Sean,
if the ground has an x and y axis, I understand how you adjust the angle for one direction (say x axis), How do you adjust in the other direction (y axis)?
I have been asked by a few eople how i built my megatree.
I used 3" abs plastic for the base and pole. I have 60 smart rgb nodes in the coro star on top.
I attached my 20 x 120 flex strips to 1/2" emt pipe. I drove a 3" oak dowel into each end of the emt. On the bottom i screwed eye bolts. On the top i screwed in eye hooks.
I recorded two videos describing the tree.
This week we had 50 mph winds and the tree didnt move at all. We will see if i get higher winds. For now, i am happy it all came out.
i like the fact that i can easily (less than 30 seconds) remove any segment from the tree if i have to repair any bad pixels.
Here are links to two videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4qY3DmR_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1z4TkZDck
thanks
sean
I rotated the base so that one set of legs was perpendicular to the down slope , I then rotated
the other set to get level. My vertical is exactly level in all directions.
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OK... I get it... Thanks
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Sean,
I have bought the star you used. I was thinking about how to sequence this. I was thinking that I would place the individual lines of lights on separate controllers and using "SingleStrand" option in XLights as a start. But then I looked and you only had a single controller going into the star. What xlights model could be used to get the individual lines of lights (there are three lines of lights to fill out the star) to light separately and also act together as one unit?
Thanks.
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You may have missed a comment from two years ago. I replaced the dumb rgb rectangles with smart rgb. My star has 10,20,30 smart rgb modules connected end to end. So 60 nodes and 180 channels. There is one ssc at the back of the star. I am able to do many more effects now.
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Oh, I read the entire post! Loved the entire idea.
I was going to mount smart modules inside as well.
I was thinking that I would need to have 3 sets of modules. One 10, one 20, and one 30. So that I could have control over each "set". This way I could turn on set 1 only or set 1 turned on and have sets 2 and 3 be more dynamic.
With a single set of 60, was there an effect that you can apply to single strand to make it appear like there are 3 sets. Or did you simply apply effects and modify them until you found something that you liked?
Thanks.
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I made multiple models, custom,10,20,30
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OK. Thanks for the help!