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CCR Circles


Jim Saul

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OK so I watched Brian's video of 4 CCR circles

http://vimeo.com/16467508

and was amazed.
I'm wondering if it is possible to do it with 2 ccr's.
Has anyone tried making 2 circles from once CCR?
Will it work?
Anything I need to watch out for?

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Jim:
LOR states that the CCR can be bent around a 3' diameter circle with some buckling. At that diameter you will use about 9.5' per circle, so there isn't enough ribbon to make 2.

However, if you mount the CCR on it's edge you could do 2 circles with no problem. George S turned me on to this with the spiral CCR. On it's edge the CCR can be bent to a 3 inch diameter with no problem, so doing a 2.5' diameter circle is no problem.

Ken:
I would start the circles on the bottom, that way the control cord is hanging down. The "movement" of the circle is controlled by sequencing so, other than ease of sequencing, it wouldn't matter.

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My display is the one Brian used for the videos. We started just before Halloween with the construction of the circles and did the first videos on Halloween night. Brain came back a week later and did more videos with some other songs and had to construct the circles again, only took about 30 minutes to put is back up the second time

I went to a friend who also does a large Christmas display who had the equipment to build the frames out of 1/2" square steel stock.

Brian requested that the circles be exactly one CCR so that figured out to be a little more than 5 feet diameter. Also the starting feed point for the CCR's to be on the left center of the circles.

The circles are held in place with just hose clamps and worked out great installing and taking them down.

Overall length was slightly over 21 feet.






Attached files 263158=14602-PC270011.JPG

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Clamping area. The right ribbon shows the start/end overlap of the ribbon

The left ribbon is the 25-26 pixel point inline with the 1/50 right ribbon point.

the hose clamps are behind the ribbon.

The garland and flowers coverup the controllers hidden in plastic boxes.


Attached files 263159=14603-PC270012.JPG

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Ok so IF I try this with the 2 CCRs that I ordered, I would need to make 4 circles each with a 2.5' diameter.
This means that the CCR cannot be mounted to the front surface of the circle. But, thanks to George's innovation, it is possible if I put the CCR on the inside of the circle instead of the facing the street. Is that correct?
Using the inside of the circle will require me to cut the CCR and solder in leads to do the 180 degree switch from one circle to the other.
Thanks, lots to think about ... Dennis, great job on them my wife and I have watched that video many times now.

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You are correct, mount the CCR on the inside or outside of circle.

You don't have to cut the CCR as long as the circles touch (or almost touch) each other like in the video. If the bottom of the circle is south and the next circle is touching the east point of the circle. Start the CCR at the east point and go clockwise around the circle on the outside, when you get back to the east point "jump" the CCR over to the inside of the second circle and go around it counter clockwise. The only reason to switch from outside to inside is so the leds are not mounted against your circle. Don't know that it really makes any difference just my thoughts.

The CCR will be a figure 8 on it's side (infinity symbol). Since you will have to have a support frame of some kind to hold up the circles, you can use the frame to run the cords to the ground and they won't show.

Sequencing will take a little getting use to. Say you want both circles rotating clockwise. On circle 1 you would chase down pixels 1 to 25 while circle 2 would chase up 50 to 26.

Interesting idea you have come up with. I will be interested to see them in action if you build them.

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OK, I'm tracking with you now.
Since 1/2 conduit is $1, I think I can safely blow $5 and see how it works. Now I just need to break out the torch :P CCRs should be arriving in a few days.

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One question - if the CCRs are mounted on the side and their viewing angle is only 120 degrees - how will this look from the front? Has anyone tried this? If you are viewing from one side or the other (not directly in front)it would seem to me that one half of the circle would appear bright and the other side may not be seen at all. But maybe I'm just confused!

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Gary Blair wrote:

how will this look from the front? It looks just fine from the front. Has anyone tried this? Yes. If you are viewing from one side or the other (not directly in front)it would seem to me that one half of the circle would appear bright and the other side may not be seen at all. If you're far enough at an angle, one side does look brighter than the other. I knew this was going to be somewhat of an issue, and that's why I painted the board the spiral is mounted on a bright white for maximum reflectivity. Seems to have worked. Might be a different story without a backing like I have behind the CCR. But maybe I'm just confused! It only gets worse as you get older... :):D:D
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George Simmons wrote:

that's why I painted the board the spiral is mounted on a bright white for maximum reflectivity.  Seems to have worked.  Might be a different story without a backing like I have behind the CCR. 


OK so once it snows, all will look good. Considering 80% of the time we have a white Halloweens ;)
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I'm going to try this next weekend.
I'll take pictures and post them.
The plan is to cut a circle out of 1/2" sheetrock, then use that as the pattern to mold the PVC around.
I will have to play around with the exact size, but it is about a 30" diameter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have put together a proof of concept using lots of electrical tape :)
now to wait for dusk to see what it looks like.
I used 1" black polly water pipe from home depot to make the circles. it worked very well because it comes rolled into circles and naturally wants to retain that shape.
more details to follow as time allows. I did take several photos so if it works I can put together a tutorial.

Attached files 265786=14745-2011-09-25 12 40 14 (2) (10

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you merge this idea with the dryer vent thread, using the vent tube would allow you to mount the CCR along the inside or outside of the hoop, and the vent tube would diffuse the light enough where you wouldnt have to worry abt the 120deg viewing angle, right?

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Sorry, I've had a stomach flu and been waiting for S3 to program them. I have all of the photos and measurements in my cell phone. I will put together something with the assembly photos as soon as I can.

The 120 viewing does not seem to be too big of a deal so long as you put the circles at the correct height for sitting in a car.

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Jim,

If you're going to be putting those circles where they're meant to be visible from only one direction, I'm thinking you could probably rotate the ribbons a bit more toward the front and virtually eliminate any viewing angle issues. Be sure you post a link as soon as you get some video - I'm looking forward to seeing it. With those smaller circles you might be on to something I can steal for next year...

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