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I've been waiting ten years......


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Hey everybody,

This is my first year running a Christmas light show. I first looked into it about ten years ago, but my boys were young and we had just made a 2 1/2 hour move because I took another job. Well the boys are older and I'm not getting any younger, so I told my wife it was time to pull the trigger.

Just before Thanksgiving I put in an order for two 16 channel DIY solder together kits and some stuff to make extension cords. I realize I was getting started VERY late, especially for a first timer! However, I had a large pvc tree I made last year and a plan.

I used my existing tree, made nine mini trees, two 5ft four channel spinning trees, two sets of oversize C7 yard stakes and a spotlight for a "tune to" sign. I soldered up the controllers and fabbed up an encloser to house both of them.

My wife was doubtful it was going to be up and running before Christmas. I have to say thay I was a little concerned myself that I would have a bunch of issues to sort out with building this much stuff in such a short amount time.

We fired it up for the first time this past Saturday and everything works perfectly!! A few minor tweaks to my sequence was all it needed.

LOR kits are awesome. The boards and components are excellent, the instructions are more than excellent and the software has tons of neat features and tools. I couldn't be more pleased. The whole family loves it!

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Congratulations. Impressive for a first timer doing it from a soldered together kit. Your display sounds a lot like my first year. You're already planning for next year right?

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Thanks Ebuechner. I have an electronics background so I had a bit of a head start when jumping into this. :)

I was actually planning for more this year (I only have a one musical sequence show playing), but the wife said, "You've been working non-stop since Thanksgiving. It's time to relax and enjoy the holidays." She's right. So yes, lots of ideas in mind for next year.

Having twelve trees in the display, we thought "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" seemed appropriate. LOL

My boys want to program a few sequences to some current music (me too actually) so I'll let them do that to play through New Years. It'll be good practice for them.

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Your wife is right enjoy the holidays. But you will have a good head start for next year. And it's good that you have a background in electronics (we won't have to explain every detail to you when you have questions) I've built most of my controllers except for the LOR stuff. I just got the pre assembled boards. I got my feet wet with pixels this year next year I think I'm going in to the deep end. But again enjoy the holidays and when you go to sleep you'll have visions of pixel Trees dancing in your head.

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Merry Christmas to all!

ItsMeBobo....I don't have any pics yet, but will certainly post them when I do. I've been using the mobile version of this forum, is it possible to post pics this way or is it easier to use the full version on a PC?

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Lots of good lines to work with on your house. I look at your picture and I have at least 100 ideas run through my head immediately. But to keep it scaled down for somebody starting out. RGB across the roof line for sure pixels would be ideal. The peak has wonderful potential. You could hang some nice feature items right there in that peak. From your current layout it looks like you on to the right idea. You have those two nice columns in the front that you could rap with several channels to do vertical chases up and down. The right side of the picture with the two windows would be a good place to put some feature items on the side of the house as well. Maybe not doing the windows and doors themselves. Thinking into the future in between those windows would be a good spot for a matrix. But these ideas may be too big for what you can do right now. But you have lots of potential with that house for sure

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I hear ya'! I had 3 channels left unused this year and was going to make a 3 channel star burst to slam up in that peak. That's when the wife said "enough!" A singing face of some kind is on tap as well, maybe that will go in the peak. I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and said we should team up and do something in the back yard, he sounded very interested. Our backyards have no fences between them and are wide open. They also butt up to our county fairgrounds which would be perfect for cars to pull up to the fence and watch. I can see this getting out of hand in a hurry!

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I saw the side yard in the picture I was going to ask that sounds perfect. But you say its your backyard that faces that potential parking area. Post a couple of pictures of that

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We're all here to encourage you to get in trouble with the wife. By the way just to intrigue you a little bit do a Google search on Renard plus 32 controllers. Also check out diyledexpress.

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Yes, that is a train track. That tree and box with track was my first display from last year, but the lights were static.

The wife is totally on board with this. I have a second garage that I use like a shop and the last two years we've setup a haunted house inside of it at Halloween. Doing that and a Christmas light show would be a bit too much, so we decided to switch to light shows for both.

I will post more pics soon detailing how the train works, my setup for this year and the backyard. Thanks for all the interest.

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Is that a train track around the base of your tree??

 

The track is made entirely of wood and the train is pulled around by a roller chain. The gear was initially driven by on old door opener motor and gear box. I end up switching to 19 volt drill motor because we had freezing rain one night while it was shut off and when it started up the next night the chain was jammed and basically exploded the plastic gearbox on the door opener.

23968956882_26fb802f4d_c.jpgIMG_1507 by Gary Kelley, on Flickr

 

23968953952_31b845dfc7_c.jpgIMG_1513 by Gary Kelley, on Flickr

 

24051008956_487f94eb07_c.jpgIMG_1514 by Gary Kelley, on Flickr

 

23781415720_49a5c61071_c.jpgIMG_1516 by Gary Kelley, on Flickr

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I like the idea of a train or something else animated. I have a large yard and the house is about 100 feet from the road so whatever I do has to be large in order to been seen.

Anyone know of large items for the yard? A big train would be cool for my Polar Express sequence!

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I would love to! I was searching around on Bing and found O Gauge trains and something called garden trains, but those aren't big enough.

I want something like the size of a PowerWheel jeep. If I used my daughter's Barbie Jeep she would probably get a little upset, but it may be worth it.

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