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Halloween talking faces


kneel999

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Has anyone tried using normal mini lights? I am going to make 2 faces for this year, and I have tons of mini lights I got this year that I want to use. I'm not opposed to using rope light, but I'm kinda on a tight budget and want to use what I already have.

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The master of face design The "George Simmons House Face" I believe uses incandescent lights rather than rope lights.

George Chime in here you are the master of face design.

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  • 1 month later...

Here are a couple of my faces.. the main face is a 6'x6' frame.. the smaller faces (chorus) are 4'x4'. I made 4 faces.. one large, three smaller, from one 150' reel of 13mm rope light from CDI. 14 LOR channels runs all three faces. I could have used the remaining two channels to randomize the eyes blinking.. next year..

Thiller:

(redubbed) The voice/mouth sync starts to go off a bit abt half way thru the song.. thats from redubbing the music to cover the kids screaming and talking for the candy, and the aircraft overhead (I'm on the traffic pattern for Sky Harbor in Phoenix).

The next two are raw audio, undubbed..

Monster Mash:


Ghostbusters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftREWYtbZwA
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RaceMedic a écrit:

Thank-you !

Have have bought all my lights this year from CDI ... I just didn't know if they were all able to be cut or now rope likes worked like that !

Will have to do more research !

I want to do a talking santa claus for next year !

Dave

Mouth programming is very interesting : I really think it gives vlife to a display ; I've build a talking Snowman using 4 mouths :

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  • 7 months later...

Cracker wrote:

ryebred wrote:
Does anyone have an idea on how much rope light is needed to create a face the size of Crackers? CDI sells the rope light in 150 foot rolls. I am wondering if one roll would be enough to make 2-3 faces or if I should go for two rolls?


I cant exactly recall, but I believe the larger face was about 100ft. The smaller were about 70ft. 2 - 150 rolls should be enough for 3 faces. I used 3/8" You want extra for sections that burn out. So get extra splices too.

I believe CDI rope cuts every 3'? May be hard to work with leaving you lots of extra for each section, but I wouldn't know. I use rope that can be cut at every 18", but its not LED.
Where did you buy your rope light at?
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The videos look good. This is my 2nd year using LOR and 1st year with talking faces. I underestimated the time it takes to program the faces would it be possible to get a copy of "dead mans party" for my faces.

Thank you
Ed

ekimball74@yahoo.com

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kneel999 wrote:

1000bulbs.com has pretty good prices and reasonable shipping too.
Would you recommend the 2.5w or the 5w for a talking face? Making the frame 7ft x 7ft. I am curious what may or may not look best, although the brighter stuff is $40 more, with cutting every 6in vs 4in on the 2.5w.
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DocBrown86 wrote:

kneel999 wrote:
1000bulbs.com has pretty good prices and reasonable shipping too.
Would you recommend the 2.5w or the 5w for a talking face? Making the frame 7ft x 7ft. I am curious what may or may not look best, although the brighter stuff is $40 more, with cutting every 6in vs 4in on the 2.5w.


I haven't tried the 5w or seen them side by side to make a recommendation. I have the 2.5w rope light (I was just going for the cheapest) My skull head is 7' tall and they seem reasonably bright.
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All my rope light I got from http://www.noveltylights.com/home.php

They were extreamly well priced and the customer service is hands down great! Hell I had 3 prongs break off when making the lights and just in general conversation mentioned that to them, they sent me 6 replacements free of charge.

Also their light cuts every 18" and so far I have put out quite a bit and only had one section burn out 18"...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok, so 1000bulbs emailed me after 2 weeks of waiting, and informed me they are out of clear 150ft rope lights until Dec 12. I have the stuff for 3/8in rope light, and need it asap! However, the only place I really found anything at seemed to only be able to cut it every 24in!! Other places only have it in 1/2. I need another good source and fast! :-/

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DocBrown86 wrote:

Ok, so 1000bulbs emailed me after 2 weeks of waiting, and informed me they are out of clear 150ft rope lights until Dec 12. I have the stuff for 3/8in rope light, and need it asap! However, the only place I really found anything at seemed to only be able to cut it every 24in!! Other places only have it in 1/2. I need another good source and fast! :-/


Same thing happened to me at 1000bulbs. I personally talked to the guy and he assured me they had it and 2 weeks later I was forced to go with haf inch from action lighting because at the time they were the only other place that I knew that sold it. Thanks for another source cracker. In the end it turned out but very frustrating.
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Thanks for the quick response!
It seems 3/8" is tough to find this time of year... Actionlighting has 2 options right now: I wait 2 weeks for a 150ft roll, with 18" cuts, or 2 days for a 200 ft roll with 24" cuts.
This is the first time I've attempted to make a singing face, and I'm making an 7.5 ft (diameter) singing snowman head. I didn't realize the cuts were so specific on rope lights.
Any advice as to what I should do?
I kinda want to get them asap, as my frame is done and I want it to look good... But I don't know if 18" is gonna be that much better as to being worth the wait in the end.
Lets say I go with 24" cut, which seems a bit long, would I just tape off what I don't want to show up?

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Hello again! I just called 1000bulbs to cancel my order, and they found one on a back shelf I guess. Haha go figure. Guess I lucked out this time!! Thanks again for the help guys!

Still curious however, with a specific cut, as I can't imagine it working out perfectly for each part.

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Glad you found them. I actually had no problems with the half inch rope light and though mine was 18 inch its very easy to hide extra had I done 24 inch cut.

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DocBrown86 wrote:

Still curious however, with a specific cut, as I can't imagine it working out perfectly for each part.

If you have sections that is too long...use black electric tape to cover up. Works perfect.
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Its pretty amazing to see the number of people on YT with talking pumpkin faces on their houses.

Kevin, you will probably (even with your new notoriety) never understand just how inspirational you've been to all us making these! I hope you're happy with yourself! 'cause all of us arrrre! :)

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Cracker wrote:

Did you try http://www.actionlighting.com ? That where I got my rope light....non-led. Not sure if their led rope dims.

I also bought a orange roll from http://www.birddogdistributing.com/


A agree -- this is where I found the best prices.

Also, if you work hard at it, you can make the faces work to a specific length. First lay out the shape roughly and then go on to the next cut mark. If the face is big enough, it is easy to take up the extra slack.
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