2010 Lights of Holiday

[meman]

Merry Christmas and Thanks to RJ, family and the moderators who help keep DLA alive....and all the great friends I have made here at DLA over the past year!

My son Anthony and I have always put up a large static display, but thanks to this forum, we have been able to take it to the next level this year with 96 channels of extreme blinky. It has been quite an adventure; we have developed many new skills and overcome numerous obstacles, but I think we are at the point where can actually call it a "show" now.

I've only had time to sequence two songs so far, but working on more every night. I'll use this thread to post some behind the scenes pics of setup and more videos as they become available.

Sorry for the grainy quality of the first attempts...Here ya go:
Jingle Bell Rock - Thousand Foot Krutch    You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

PS. You're going to ask; so the candy cans are hanging in a large oak the behind the house. The 3D depth effect is way better than the video can capture.

Updates:
Fireworks & laser mix You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses   /w laser You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Mike E.
Holiday, FL

[coachers]

Very Nice!

 What are the cascading lights on the roof? They look like mini light polls or even blizzards.

 

[RJ]

Cool!

RJ

[meman]

The show is 100% LED except for the rope light around the roof and some of some of the candy cans which I convert to LED as they die. The wind is  really hard on them....well it's really more gravity's fault if they hit the ground.

Lessons learned the hard way:
- I laugh at buying a 250' roll of 18/2 SPT1 and 50 vampire plugs...we're up to 1000' and ran out of plugs long ago.
- The Chinese only supply 1' leads on snowfall lights. I had to solder and shrink wrap 80 splices for the lights on the roof.
- Don't get so excited to see light that you energize a channel while cutting the wire to put on a vampire plug, it will fry a triac...I'm down to 95 channels now.

Descriptions for the pictures:
I like clean borders, so we used a bandsaw to create  lots of little notched posts out of 1/2 PVC. I made these to hold two rows of lights.

For easy storage, I use heavy duty velcro from Harbor Freight to attach PVC legs to my LE cases. Cords are .79 extensions from Lowes

Behind the scenes shot showing strategic placement of LE cases (another on the roof). Mega tree is a simple 14' tall PVC creation of my own design. The base breaks down to straight pieces that can be easily wrapped and stored (plastic wrap is Gods gift for organization & storage). This weak looking tree danced around but never fell down in 30-40 mph gusts. Just straighten out the strings and it's ready to go again.

Command central; Nothing fancy, ancient Toshiba running XP, Dongle and radio transmitter

[wbuehler]

Nice

[rrowan]

Very Cool

Great job, its always great to see what every one is doing with the LEs

You forgot the Mountain Dew

Command central; Nothing fancy, ancient Toshiba running XP, Dongle and radio transmitter

Cheers

Rick R.

[tonypgst]

Good show.  I like the cascading lights.

[coachers]

Could you take some daytime pics of the roof lights?

 I really like the look you came up with.

[meman]

Ask and ye shall receive.
I won't lie; the snowfall lights were a lot of work, but they do look impressive. They all fall at the same rate unless you leave them on for a while (I'm guessing poor tolerance in one of the components allows the deviation over time or as it heats), but that's OK for my purposes. Looking at the video again, I see the one over the front door has started to go crazy...maybe my fault with the splice, I'll have to check it. 

They're made to hang, so I had to fabricate some stands. I just used common red brick with a 1" PVC sleeve bent to match the pitch of the roof. Spray painted some of the brick gray to match the shingles. Used a heat gun to bend the PVC. That part actually went really quick, about an hour to heat & bend all 20. Soldering and splicing runs of wire took a couple of evenings and a few sips of Jameson to get through.

Got them direct form China through AliExpress. Heres a video review I did of them when they first arrived: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Mike E.

[kylec]

I like it!   

I might borrow that song next year.   

Kyle

[ThaiWay]

Really good stuff Mike!  The candy canes... wish I could see in real!  and the snowfall tubes... awesome effect!  I'm gonna have to figure a way to build my own now ;-)

Merry Merry

[travailen]

Great show! I love the icicles on the roof and the candy canes in the tree. You have given me some good ideas. About the icicles, could you tell us the name of the company you bought the icicles from. there are lots of chinese vendors on that site.

Thanks for a great show and lots of useful information.

Rick S

[meman]

We had our best New Years celebration yet.

Heres a video to share...hopefully have a couple more laser remixes to post soon

Fireworks & laser mix You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping /w laser You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Thanks again to everyone at DLA for a great year!

Mike E.

[gforman]

Thank you for sharing, alot of really good ideas here

Glen

[trekster]

Wow that is really a great set up you got.  I love the blizzard icicles on the roof.  Thank you for sharing the daytime pictures.  But how are those candy canes floating above your house?

Ron