Status Check?

[scharbon]

Seeing the "Operation Nutcracker" thread kind of got me wondering where everyone is with respect to their shows?  Only 2 1/2 weeks until unofficial "lights on".

My status:
    - I have all my light strings checked and ready to hang, I have all of my controllers checked and working (both SSC and DMX).  ETD works
    - I have 4 new songs and an opening sequence completed and looking pretty good (14 minutes of blinky flashy).
    - BUT I HAVEN"T SET UP ANYTHING.  Our HOA manages some of the property that I temporarily "appropriate" for the month of NOV/DEC and the lawn service guys haven't completed the season.  Last year I set up one week too early and they mowed my power cords and cat5 cables (it was  different kind of light show than I expected when I powered it up not realizing what they had done).  I will not be repeating that mistake.  My guess is I will not be able to start until next weekend at the earliest.  I am confident, however, that I'll get 'r done.

Where is eveyone else on setting up their show?

Steve

[jnealand]

Most of the lights mounted on my house go up for Halloween - one of the beautiful things about using RGB.  Nothing goes on the lawn until Thanksgiving week.  Need to pick up the leaves as long as possible.

[drlucas]

Being my first year, I've gotten in WAY over my head...but... I did use Halloween to work out a lot of the bugs.

Done
1 - megatree built
2 - mounted roof and window lights
3 - tune to & singing coro sings built and mounted (twice mounted, because of wind)
4 - three arches built and mounted
5 - 21 candy canes planted and connected to the LEs
6- raspberry pi scheduler pretty much figured out and loaded with 5 test sequences to drive the signs and candy canes
7- 9' nutcracker built

Outstanding
1 - finish adding RGB to the sequence (it might just be a onsets and random light display for me this year)
2 - finish the three coro canes (if my order from Ray ever arrives)
3 - build the two aetherIIs
4 - build some mini trees (if my order from Ray ever arrives)
5 - figure out what to put on the dog house

Not 100% sure I'll be ready in 2 weeks, but fingers and toes are crossed!!

I just have to be 100% sure that I don't leave the wifes gift until the 24th of December. If she gets another vacuum this year it maybe my first and last year of this hobby!

[arw01]

2 WEEKS, 2 WEEKS    

Oh that hurts.

As with DrLucas it's the first year, I don't even know what all I have to do yet, but just some of it.

Finish sequencing the first song, that's been a struggle learning the software, but making some real progress now.
Then pick two more songs with family help
need to order a fm transmitter!
Cut 32 extension cords up and put them on the LE's
Get the LE CG-1500's from fedex in a day or two and mount the LE's
Waiting on the etherdongle, need to assemble that
connect the conductor to the etherdongle and get that working
put out the regular christmas stuff that will mostly be run by the LE's (weekend after thanksgiving normally)
finish painting the window frame hangers (1st coat went on yesterday)
dado a groove for the flex strips to set in and solder the strings together since ray has no 90 connectors for the
     WS2811 flex strings
build another 10 or so SSC controllers and program
put the pex tubes up with the flex strings in them and cut them to length and set the proper node count

Hmmm, might make it, maybe!
assemble said window frame hangers and properly label them as to which window 

[drlucas]

Lots of time!!!

For my sequencing, I've taken a lot of short cuts to date...I was able to in the last 3 days learn enough about HLS , Vixen+ and Xlights to grab a bunch of sequences from land o lights and a few from Stuart with the animated faces and get my candy canes sequenced. The up side to that is I have 10 songs now that are pretty much sequenced with the 24 channel singing tree and 21 candy canes. The down side is I don't have the knowledge of actually how that was created. Unfortunately I won't be figuring that out between now and the next few weeks.

I have however spent the last 5 hours tonight with nutcracker and have 5 models sequenced in nicely with Carol of the Bells (david foster version). I still have the mega tree and the roof to do. The roof is just like a big window model, but not 100% sure yet how I'll build it. I think the custom model got me a work around for the window bug issue I was dealing with in xlights. I can't believe even with the awesome timing marks already created and ONLY 22 lines of music to sequence that it took me 5 hours but hopefully the learning curve moves very quickly for me.

My wife got interested in this again tonight when I found a great version of Frosty (the dean martin one) to do. Would be awesome if Stuart could do up an animated face for that song...that would be really awesome (hint!). If every day I can get one song done I'll be ready for xmas....I am really, really getting the hang of nutcracker/xlights now and starting to learn some of the ways to make visualing effects easier - and do really appreciate that lock down filter. I like to go with themes for colors and having the ability to pick just greens or reds is awesome.

This year will be a very good first year I believe for both of us! I just hope for your benefit that you have better weather than I do right now. I started the mounting in September because I needed the head start to work out bugs and really think through how I was going to mount..and I know that come November its near freezing and sucks to work outside.

Make sure you get a couple of videos of your show for all of us to enjoy!!

[taybrynn]

I've got nothing up yet besides my roof star stand.  Working feverishly to get 4000+ ss nodes into conduits.   No sequencing but ill wing that last as usual.    Still no sign of the Zeus   --- without it I'm just running without a megatree that works and may try to use passive hubs and free up a ss hub somehow.    The rgb should make the roof install a 1 day affair.   The worst is that I'm sick and every night the chronic cough appears and I'm basically unable to do much.   My whole house is flu like sick.   Argh !!,

[Steve Gase]

have all of my controllers built and tested.
have had my star burst and smart string shooting stars built and tested.  the same with my aethers.
trying to finish the covers on the last 7 coroflakes, and the assembly of 24 smart string arches...
still need to assemble 3 green house matrix panels -- and figure out any kind of animation sequences.
haven't started to attach 5000 pixels to my megatree.  that will be the final element this year, but it likely won't make the thanksgiving roll-out.
 

[tjbrickner]

I don't have anything fancy for my first year so I'm feeling good about the Thanksgiving deadline.  Lights are hung but I still have to run extension cords.  Express is all tested but no sequences yet. 

[arw01]

Made some great progress today.

Got a little more sequencing done in LSP with no issues today.  Used macros to do leaping arches and they look good in visualizer, had intended to hook them up to the real thing this evening and see, but got going with other pieces.

Attached the window frames with the wingnuts for final fitting, only had to cut one down a touch to fit inside the aluminum siding fascia.  Got them screwed together to hold in place and then packed them to the shop.

Cut all the dado's on the window frames and got most of the way soldering the flex strip back together to wrap around the window from. Of course soldered one a section too long so have to lengthen a dada, but oh well.

Got word the Aethers shipped, woo hoo.  more things to play with soon.

[duane.mosley]

Got word the Aethers shipped, woo hoo.  more things to play with soon.

just built my first aether last night. WOW! better plan several hours for this build

[drlucas]

What do you need for the build?

I have printed instructions and I have my cases and power supply, but think I need heat sink compound and some wire. Anything else?

[zwiller]

I've got nothing up yet besides my roof star stand.  Working feverishly to get 4000+ ss nodes into conduits.   No sequencing but ill wing that last as usual.    Still no sign of the Zeus   --- without it I'm just running without a megatree that works and may try to use passive hubs and free up a ss hub somehow.    The rgb should make the roof install a 1 day affair.   The worst is that I'm sick and every night the chronic cough appears and I'm basically unable to do much.   My whole house is flu like sick.   Argh !!,

Very similar here.  Day #2 stomach flu and finally feeling better.  Waiting for a shipment from Ray to complete live trees, minis, and arches.  That said, I'll say sequencing is 80%.  Need to tweak last years yet and finish 2 I added this year then do the ogg file LSP export conductor loading dance.  Tons of other things I don't even remember at this point... 

[chrisatpsu]

wait, you mean it's not January???  then surely it isn't even June yet, right?  right?       

[arw01]

No sequencing the last couple of days, but learned some more on LSP.

I got nearly all the soldering to wrap the flex ribbon around the window frames, however managed to blow out a fuse on one of my 16 active hub connections.  I had gotten a little wide on a solder joint to the ribbon and connected +12 to one of the other channels with the tiniest little slip of solder, darn.

Just need to solder on the 4 wire pigtail now and stuff the ribbon into the dados.  Will take a few pictures when they go up.

May not quite make thanksgiving weekend, but starting to feel like there is a finish line out there.

[arw01]

Learned it helps to read the wiki and not assume..  spent part of tonight resoldering some wires on strings to match the wiring scheme in the wiki.

I have now got all my pixel strings functional with pigtails.

I have put 4 flex strips into the vertical pipe installed on the house. i started running cat 5 to places and realized I did not have enough so I have bought a couple passive hub pcbs from the store and ordered the bom from mouser.

Tested the amp draw of flex strips with the ws2811 and can run several of those off a passive hub with a 10 amp or so supply with no issue what so ever.

Figured out I can use a 90 degree 1/2 schedule 4 warmed with a heat gun to cap my 3/4 pex tubes and then put a ziptie on the 3 core conductor to keep it from falling out of the vertical pex tube on the side of the house..   

Need to go pick up some schedule 200 pvc tomorrow to wrap around my garage door opening.

made up 10 ssc pvc caps with the 3 core conductors stuffed through and the pigtails.  Tinned the pigtails and can start on the pcb's tomorrow.

Alan