Star Lord Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Anyone have good luck with making 2 or 3 foot tall candy canes out of PVC or PEX? I have some really bright mini Lights from Holiday Light Express but that don’t shine through enough with a schedule 40 or 30 PVC pipe. I could try PEX but I have trouble forming it into the shape of a candy cane and holding that shape because it likes to coil. thanks, James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapkirk Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 If you can use 5 foot tall, Lowes has a plastic candy cane with the red stripe through the clear tubing and the light strings fit inside real well and are perfect for brightness, I always get them on their after christmas sales, I think I have around 40 of them now, I think they go on sale for $1-3 range. I just thought, you can cut these down real easy if 5 foot doesn't work for you. And I'll bet they are seasonal as far as availability. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 I tested PVC years ago - it sucks for putting lighting inside the PVC. It attenuates the light massively, and causes a very severe color shift towards yellow. As for PEX, I bought some 100 foot coils of PEX years ago and NEVER could get it to resist coiling. However, Home Depot sells 10 foot straight pieces of PEX under their SharkBite brand name. Much easier to put a bend in it than to get the coils to straighten. I have been using the Home Depot PEX for my arches since 2014 and am very happy with the look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 You could take the pex or the lights themselves and attach them to the pvc and they you can use that same PVC setup, get some 12" or longer spikes and at setup put the pvc over the spikes and you have several problems solved. JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasLights Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 i added pixels to both PVC and PEX. For the PEX, I drilled a hole in halfway through and used square pixels, and that gave a nice glowing effect. Although i can see that making a candy cane would be hard to bend. possibly, the 1 inch straight pieces could possibly be heated and bent. For PVC, i drilled the holes all of the way through and used bullet pixels. PVC wouldn't bend either, but you use 45 degree elbows to do the same thing. But i added candy canes last year, and just used 10mm coro ones from Boscoyo and worked perfect for what i needed. examples of all in my signature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 My arches use PEX that have CCP nodes drilled in from the back side. I agree that it makes a nice defused lighting. Trying to do that with PVC results in a string yellow shift and the light mostly eaten up in the PVC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 (edited) On 7/20/2020 at 11:31 AM, k6ccc said: My arches use PEX that have CCP nodes drilled in from the back side. I agree that it makes a nice defused lighting. Trying to do that with PVC results in a string yellow shift and the light mostly eaten up in the PVC. I'm looking to build arches from scratch and I really like your idea. Hoe do you prevent them from twisting when you go to bend them? How many did you use per arch? I'm assuming they are 10', right? Did you do the end to end ones? Edited July 25, 2020 by rgardner518 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 My arches are made from 10 foot pieces of 3/4" PEX tubing from Home Depot. Each arch has 50 Cosmic Color Pixels on 2 inch spacing. That means that there is 98 inches from the the first to last pixel. That leaves just a hair under a foot of unlit pipe at each end - which is perfect for slipping the ends over rebar to mount the arches. When I originally built them, I tied a string between the ends, then laid the arch on the ground to drill the 50 holes for the pixels. After a few years, some have twisted a bit so some arches have the pixels coming in from the top and some from the bottom. Does not affect the lighting. More in a bit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 14 minutes ago, k6ccc said: My arches are made from 10 foot pieces of 3/4" PEX tubing from Home Depot. Each arch has 50 Cosmic Color Pixels on 2 inch spacing. That means that there is 98 inches from the the first to last pixel. That leaves just a hair under a foot of unlit pipe at each end - which is perfect for slipping the ends over rebar to mount the arches. When I originally built them, I tied a string between the ends, then laid the arch on the ground to drill the 50 holes for the pixels. After a few years, some have twisted a bit so some arches have the pixels coming in from the top and some from the bottom. Does not affect the lighting. More in a bit... You you use the end to end rgb or the non end to end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Each arch uses a single string of 50 CCPs with the controller between two arches. That way the two strings from the controller each control one arch. In the photo below, you can see the black trash can bag between every other arch (the middle one is a bit hard to see because the orange tree blocks that view). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 4 minutes ago, k6ccc said: Each arch uses a single string of 50 CCPs with the controller between two arches. That way the two strings from the controller each control one arch. In the photo below, you can see the black trash can bag between every other arch (the middle one is a bit hard to see because the orange tree blocks that view). Interesting...see i thought a controller could control more then just two strands. May I ask which you are using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Mine are the original CCPs which can only control two strings per controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 (edited) 13 minutes ago, k6ccc said: Mine are the original CCPs which can only control two strings per controller. They still still them I see. Show I invest? No pictures...are they that much more different then the new ones? http://store.lightorama.com/orcocori.html Edited July 26, 2020 by rgardner518 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 I would get the new ones if it were today. I got mine on the first day that they were available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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