How many channels do most of you use for a mega tree?

[bob_moody]

I run a smaller version of Tim Fischer old tree (In fact I read his how-to back in 2006 (or so) and built his Mega-Strings of Red-Green-Gold. I will add that the Mega-String method is nearly flawless. I can attest to this because the strings I built in 2006 are the SAME strings you see on my tree today --- bulbs and all... The lights are in nice groups and the mega-string diameter seems to take the stress off the sockets so we have had literally no failures..

We run 8 3-color megastrings, up and over a tri-tel pole (triangular topper was a little tough with the 60 degree angles) which brings us to a grand total of 24 channels.

Unless you have a lot of Christmas waltzes, using 4,8,12,16,20 strings (or mega-strings) makes programming easier and more fluid. I have a few elements that have odd counts (my old arches.. 5 strings of 2 colors .. 10 channels)which makes programming a bit more challanging.

Long way to get here .. but thats my story and I'm sticking to it..

Bob

[Tim Fischer]

I run a smaller version of Tim Fischer old tree (In fact I read his how-to back in 2006 (or so) and built his Mega-Strings of Red-Green-Gold. I will add that the Mega-String method is nearly flawless. I can attest to this because the strings I built in 2006 are the SAME strings you see on my tree today --- bulbs and all... The lights are in nice groups and the mega-string diameter seems to take the stress off the sockets so we have had literally no failures..

I used mine for 9 seasons. The biggest problem was bulb color-fading: I actually repainted the greens about midway through their life with stained glass paint to try to lengthen their life. The Target Gold (can't get that anymore, but loved them) looked as good last year as the day they went out. The red held its own but definitely faded over time. Next to all the LED's that have crept into my display over the last 5 years, it was starting to look pale and out of place. But the strings themselves held up perfectly.

Going into the 10th season it was time to redo the tree. I started out investigating redoing it with LED stringers. I quickly discovered "dumb" RGB strings were cheaper and much more flexible than the LED stringers. And then I discovered that for about 30% more I could have a pixel tree. I figured if I was going to dump a load of cash, I might as well dump a bit more and have full control

[Dad02]

16 per color, W/R/G not including the star.

[wmilkie]

Dumb question for all you mega tree experts: do you keep all your bulbs pointing in the same direction? Maybe ty wrap them so they're all uniform?

inquiring minds need to know

[Tim Fischer]

Dumb question for all you mega tree experts: do you keep all your bulbs pointing in the same direction? Maybe ty wrap them so they're all uniform?

inquiring minds need to know

I don't, and I like the random look. Makes it look more like a regular Christmas tree to me. To me, if all the bulbs are oriented perfectly, it looks more like a Vegas sign than a Christmas display item.

[Santas Helper]

30' tree using a ham tower plus a 3' star.

64 channels - 16 channels per color with 3 strings per channel with R,W,B,G LEDs (192 strings total, 19,200 LEDs)

16 more channels for the center tree pole (800 LEDs)

1 channel for the star

1 channel for the strobes

[chipwdw]

16 channels here. R/W/G/Y (tradition for me). 20' tall, 3 strings up to the top and 1 in the base for each channel. so 48 total. plus 25 xenon strobes (1 channel from different controller). want to add more, but power supply issue on that side. dont really like LED look, so i am stuck for now. would love to do 16ch per color, and smaller tree on the inside of main tree.