Ok. I have been going back and forth on what and how to do this. I guess I am making it harder than it should be. The issue I have is I am trying to drop my amperage at my power panel. However, I REALLY don't want a "thin" looking mega tree (even one sided). Still not completely sure what I am going to do, but here are some of the ways I am going about "figuring" how many lines, how tall, etc. In the picture you will see a pipe with a "Blue" bungee around the tree. I do not like heights...so this is the quick and dirty way around that. I attached the measuring tape about 13 ft up the pipe before strapping it against the tree. Gives me a little bit of height but still not sure if it will look good and or if I have to also lower it. Lower it? If I lower the top of the tree, then I may be able to use half as many lines because I could "fold it in half". The rope serves 2 purposes. One for me to see the skirt of the tree and the second to measure how far around it is. I took the measuring tape and went out 5ft from the bottom. Then I put nails out every few feet as I went around the arc. I tied the rope on one end of the arc (on to the nail) and then pulled the rope up against the nails until we got to the end and tied it there. I then went back and measured the tape to see how many inches it was. From there I divided by the number of inches I wanted each line to be. I REALLY WANT A THICK LOOKING TREE. So I think we will go with 6 inches between each line. 288 inches by 6 gives me 48 lines. Another 15.5 amps. Ouch. May lower the height by 3 ft and could then divide that in half.
I changed a couple of things. Moved the skirt in from the big tree on the right, moved to another tree to make it more symmetrical. They only have a 2 or 3 ft skirt and the big tree has a 5ft. Reason? Less lights. I am kind of worried I will run into some power issues. Not really worried about the lights...can get more of those. Just can't up my power panel. I still may go with 32 mini trees...but also could go with just 16. Added some Snowflakes on the side as well. I will put those on separate channels. Give it a "Falling" effect. Also took about all the wreaths and left the one larger one on the 2nd story. I may take some of the lines from the mega tree from last year...and use it on some of the others. The large tree, may make it about 20ft tall. The one on the far left...may fold those lines in half. Have a power line above it! The trees in the middle? May fold those in 3rd's. Small mega trees in the middle. Have to take inventory next week of lights. I wish I could find my inventory sheets!!!! I think I have those labeled on each box. Just need to have it on a separate sheet as well. Note to self; ALWAYS keep a inventory sheet of EVERYTHING! Oh yeah....I think I am going to do "Baby Arches" inside of larger ones. Will cause me to start over..but that is ok. I am not completely sure if I want to do this or not. I had the mini trees in a wedge last year. That lead to some interesting possibilities. However if a car pulled up right next to the display, you might not be able to see it very well. It might not be too hard to go and redo some of the programing for the mini trees. Not sure too whether to keep my 16 or go with another 16. That would probably mean a new controller. All of the mega trees would be turned into one side trees (instead of a 360 deg one). I could use some of my trees in the pine island for the center anchor. The wife and kids do not like all the wreaths on the house either. Already have one large one... Might change that. Might give me more channels to play with. LOR Secret Sale
Well... I got home from a trip to South GA. 30 minutes later the Light O Rama secret sale began. I quickly eyeballed what controller(s) I wanted. Got the PC version already and built...with the high power heat sinks. $113.95 per. 10pm eastern rolled around. I had 2 computers up and ready to go. The computer that came up with the order page ready to go (laptop won). I quickly entered my info...and got the order in. 10:01:58 pm eastern. 10:03pm eastern they were sold out!!! Got 2 more controllers ...just barely. So I am up to 80 channels now. I still may be adding more. Found a dc controller on the board tonight I may buy (great deal at $50.00). Might run some LED spots with this. LED C9s I willbe getting my lights from LED Holiday Lighting soon (see other post for url). 120 of them. Just hope they will look ok. 5 LED's per bulb. Won't be as bright as the incandescent, but sure will save money. I may get some regular LED C9 strings of red and green to go with it, but they won't be the retros as from LED Holiday. Now what to do next??? Mini Trees I am pretty sure I will add some green incandescent lights to my mini trees. I haven't made up my mind whether I am going to put relays in so as to avoid more channel usage. (I can't find the link right now over at forums.planetchristmas.com .) This would eat up one channel, but would allow me 15 other channels. Just not sure if I would be able to fade back and forth between colors on the mini trees. It would be a hard switch. More LED C9's I may some LED "Stringers" on the gutters. These would not be the retros but sealed, non-replaceable bulbs. Look at some videos, they look ok. No. they are not as bright as the incandescent bulbs, but would be a neat change over, especially in some chase sequences between the colors. Not sure if I am going to get just Green, or go with some Red as well. Good prices at www.christmas-led.com . Single Sided Mega Tree I have a large pine tree on the corner of my pine island. I am thinking about going up about 25', connecting a pulley, attach a large carbine to some heavy stranded wire going through the pulley, then attach the ends of some light strings to this. I would then attach the ends at the ground with tent stakes. Fan out the bottom in a half circle. Not sure yet how many channels and also how far up to really go on the tree. Most lines are about 23.5' to 24'. That will really determine how far to go up. I might even DIY a star at the top and use the DIY 4 channel controller to make star flash, spin, etc. I may do some mini versions of this on the other trees in the island as well. May run out of channels...and power capabilities before going this far. I tell ya....one day I have to make the LED switch. It will be the ONLY way I can add more lights...while dropping the power bill! Speaking of more power.... Whether I do all of the above or not...I am going to tap into the Air Con. circuits next to the outside units. If I don't, I am afraid I will end up tripping some circuits. Knock on wood...no breakers tripped last year for that reason. Just the wet conditions. Hopefully with all of the stakes I got after Christmas...I can elevate that problem this year. Once the mini trees got their "insulation" put on their legs...everything stayed on in light rains. I ordered a sample pak from LED Holiday Lighting and honestly wasn't real impressed. I did a comparison with a regular incandescent clear C9 and a "Sun White" LED C9 retro fit. I was impressed how well it was sealed up, but really not as bright. That being said...I still may end up buying about 100 to 120 bulbs at about $1.00 a bulb. Not cheap. However it should save some on the amp pull that incandescent C9's.
For several months I had those strings on the floor here in my workshop. I would work on them in spurts. Really got tired of looking at them! Put them in the box...and put them in the carport. If I need them, I will make some up ;-) The LOR sale starts at the end of this month. Hope to get at least 2 more controllers. I may end up getting a DC controller so as to use with some DC floods. I am slowly getting through all of the strings of lights which either had half the string working, or were completely dead. It does take a few minutes per string, so I am not sure how long I want to stay with this side of the display. There are a bunch of strings I have collected over the years. This is even after throwing away A BUNCH of them last year. I have learned this year, NEVER THROW AWAY ANY DEAD STRINGS! Because....you can make cheap extension cords out of them!
These cords would be very low amp cords to hook up an element that may be 3 to 5 strings. That is violating the "3 string" rule however. I had 42" trees with 5 strings on each with this type of setup. Each string is basically 2, 50 stringers together. You have a 22 gauge wire running down the thing on each end with NO lights attached to it. Simply pull the strings apart and find those wires (one on top and one on bottom of the stringer). You will have to cut and make a couple of splices. I ended up putting a dab of solder at that splice as well as taping it up. After making a few splices, I had a 22' extension cord with a 3 amp fuse in it! I ended up using 16 "dead stringers" with lights pulled (so half wouldn't light up) last year on some of the mini trees and arches. I know this works well, because it worked with my setup through TONS of rain. Yes. We had some GFI issues. If they were from the before mentioned...taking the lights out will help. Also keeping the strings off the ground (project for next year!) will help as well. Floods I may end up looking at this for next year. I am contemplating the use of MR16's or some other type of flood lights. The reason for this is to possibly do away with the C9's incandescents that I am using now. They were a HUGE amp killer that I really need to change out to LED retro fits. However that will be an outlay of at least $100.00 on sale. With more limited funds this year on the display...that might be an issue. The floods (would be) and the C9's were used to highlight the house which is in the back of the display. The MR16's or other type of flood lights would require more channels, but might be more economical to run in the long run. I may have to buy a DC controller to use with this idea. If I do, I could actually do more "stuff" with it (with the floods) than with the C9's. Would love to do both....we'll see. My Christmas Display Blog... (My progress along the way. Please be sure and sign my Guest Book.)9/19/2009
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Click on the September archive and then click on comments to see all of the 2009 display blogs. I am going to start blogging with a "Title" and also put the post into the blog so it can be archived by month. Should have done that to begin with. If you are new to this world of "Animated Displays", I suggest you not only read mine, but other blogs. They will help you learn NOT to make the same mistakes others have. Archives
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