Light Parade float ideas?

[rednosetbird]

WOW,I thought we were talking about how to....getting a little bit out of control!

[Santas Helper]

Just do not fully understand why I was informing one person of the common term. And Have 4 or so others jump in to my post, that was not directed to them. What is your dog in this race? What does it matter to you? I would like to hear back from others, other than AZDan

Max-Paul,

I can relate.

I've wanted to correct others for saying WOW (wizards of winter) when it should be WIW (wizards in winter).

[Max-Paul]

Santa, maybe that is me who has said WOW when it really should be WIW. I feel one of the problems with our society is that no one can stand to be corrected without someone crying that they feel that someone has been mean to them. The problem is without peer pressure we all do what we dang well please and instead of being a society all going the same way. We tend to go our own way and nothing gets done. Deep subject and I might not be doing it justice. I suppose I will also have to say that we can become a lynch mob too if not kept in check.

All I can say is that this is a technical hobby. And it helps when a standardized jargon is used. Thus we can focus on the matter and not worry about how to communicate

[gtoyeah]

I think candy canes going around the float. Each being their own channel. Should provide a good effect.

[AZDan]

OK, the weekend brainstorming session has resuted in some ideas.

Making a gingerbread house out of plywood the width of the trailer and about 2/3 the length. Making the other 1/3 of the trailer a front yard with a webber spiral tree about 9' tall and some gift boxes was the idea to fill it out. As far as the sides go the candy canes were one thought and another was to make a 2' high gingerbread train out of plywood and painted up nicely. (already have the plans from Winfield for it) I could make the wheels spin via LOR and put chasing light sets as the track.

Kinda thought that with a gingerbread house we could have windows and a half door that the children inside could wave from and it would keep them contained and safely away from the edges of the trailer. Drilling holes and poking the lights through would be easy and I could cover the back up to keep the kids from touching the light sets.

A 9' tree and another 3' of trailer highth keeps me lower than a typical semi-trailer so I can be confident I will be under the power lines and stop lights.

Santas Helper's idea of parking in the front yard would work great after the parade. A gingerbread house would easily incorporate into the overall theme of the display. Only issue would be to ensure that I do not use too many channels on the float so that I have them for the home display.

[Santas Helper]

Sounds like you have a really nice plan. The Gingerbread house is a good idea when involving children in the display.

Keep us posted on updates.

I'm curious to see the progress and end result.

[MtDew4me]

I know you have your plan but I remember reading about a guy who built a Train float for a Girls Scout troup. It was really cool.

I'll find the link...maybe there's something there that helps you out as you work out all the details.

It's on PC here: http://forums.planetchristmas.com/index.php?/topic/34141-parade-float-train/page__hl__%2Btrailer+%2Bbuild

Be sure to post pics when you complete your project.

[spomalley]

I've gotta say that train was really impressive.

[AZDan]

Love the train float. I will see if there is anything I can incorporate into mine. That trailer is the same size as mine so it really looks like alot can be put on a 16' trailer.

[JF1993]

My family makes it a tradition to travel to East Peoria each Christmas to see the festival of lights. If you want some inspiring ideas check out their website

http://cityofeastpeoria.com/index.cfm?pageID=28

[AZDan]

Got a reindeer together. Thought about putting it on the truck for the float but it is over 15' tall and after you add it to the bed highth it won't make it under everything.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AB2B60F3BCC0F1D3!118&authkey=!ADrkZxnA1vXM-N8

Made up 3 trees to put mouths on that I will be able to use for both the float and yard.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AB2B60F3BCC0F1D3!117&authkey=!ALI6U1XWlAgFKO0

Just have to buy some ropelight and connectors to put the mouths on.

[Santas Helper]

WOW! That's a big reindeer

That needs to go in your front yard for sure.

Nice job.

Edit: I would call that a megadeer

Edited September 9, 2012 by Santas Helper

[AZDan]

6 sheets of 4'x8' 3/4" plywood. We are in the process of making another reindeer that has it's head down like it's eating and a scale sled for the reindeer in the picture. The sled is marked out and I am doing the cutting in the morning. The sled is taking 10 sheets of plywood by itself. It stands 10' tall and is 15 foot long.

As soon as we get it cut and painted we will put a picture on the skydrive for everyone. I would have loved to put the reindeer on the truck with it's rear feet in the bed and the front feet on the roof with the sled on the trailer but there is no way I can clear the traffic lights on the parade route.

Thanks for the link JF1993, if I had some welding skills it sure would be fun creating a wire frame float like they have in Peoria. I went to fire school not to far from there in Rantoul in 1984. Chanute is closed now, a victim of the first round of base closures years ago.

[JBullard]

Hmmm, maybe I missed it, but have you worked out how you are going to power the controllers and lights ?

The controllers need a good stable power source. I have used the Honda EU xxx i-series generators with great success with the LOR controllers. (they are not cheap, but they are quite)

Have had zero success with the $400 or so regular gasoline generators or the 12 volt to 120 volt inverters

Just a suggestion to start doing some electical power testing with the LOR controllers and your pararde sequences early before you spend a lot of time building parade props. YMMV

Last year for parade vehicles I just use LOR DC boards and RGB LEDs. Made parade vehicle preparation much simpler.

Edited September 9, 2012 by JBullard

[Santas Helper]

I went to fire school not to far from there in Rantoul in 1984. Chanute is closed now, a victim of the first round of base closures years ago.

I went to Chanute twice, both times in the dead of winter . In 1984 for Aircraft Ground Equipment (AGE) class for 4 1/2 months and again in 1988 for Aircraft Scheduler class for 6 weeks. 1988 is when they were running commercials to save the base from closure. Shortly after it was shut down.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Santas Helper

[magish01]

Ah, good old Chanute. Went there in the fall of 1974 for 1 year electronics and equip training after 2 years of language school in Monterey, CA.

[AZDan]

Parade went off without a hitch.

<iframe src="https://skydrive.liv...AJIkdhjX2I52Cdw" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Sequenced Amazing Grace-Tecno and TSO's Christmas Canon with the kids choir. Did 37 channels.

The tree was a 16 channel spiral.

Put a smoke machine in the chimney.

All the kids rode in the house waving to everyone. They all had a great time.

Thanks to all for your inputs and suggestions.

[Santas Helper]

Now it's time to move that trailer to the front yard and run that display.

Glad to hear everything went as planned!!!

Edited December 4, 2012 by Santas Helper

[Push Eject]

Parade went off without a hitch.

<iframe src="https://skydrive.liv...AJIkdhjX2I52Cdw" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Sequenced Amazing Grace-Tecno and TSO's Christmas Canon with the kids choir. Did 37 channels.

The tree was a 16 channel spiral.

Put a smoke machine in the chimney.

All the kids rode in the house waving to everyone. They all had a great time.

Thanks to all for your inputs and suggestions.

Mind. Blown.

How did you power that?

Charlie

[AZDan]

Honda EU300i 3000watt generator on the recomendation of folks here at the forum. Power was clean and not a single issue.

Ran mostly LED's so I think I could have gotten away with a 2000watt but I had already reserved the 3000watt.

Close to 4000 lights. The smoke machine was only 400watts. I had another 150 LED's on the tow van running on a inverter.

Speakers easily overcame the generator noise because it was so quiet. I mounted the generator behind the spiral tree in the rear and covered it with a box wrapped as a gift. I wanted the generator's exhaust to be at the rear so the kids did not suck fumes.

One thing I learned was that any songs used should really be good tempo'd ones. Folks along the side of the road don't have the luxery of seeing the whole song. Any points in the sequence that do not utilize alot of lights makes the whole float seem dark. I did make sure that both sequences heavily used the spiral tree since it seems most people liked to see it spinning around.

The only other unforseen issue we had was that the city decided to let spectators watch the parade from the left side of the road. We have a divided road with a 30ft middle area running through town. The parade route has always been down the road 3/4 mile then turn left across the median then 3/4 mile back down the other side exposing just one side of the float to spectators. In all the previous years the city did not allow people to cross and watch the parade from the middle so we set the float up to be seen from the right side only. Suffice to say the people on the left side of the road got to see the back of the gingerbread house but no windows with kids. We will make adjustments next year.