Halloween 2009

[huskernut]

Well not even in the same magnitude but just as I am thinking about Crackers loss, the hard drive on my main programming PC goes bad this weekend. I was wanting to suggest Carbonite as a back up to those who have a lot of valuable stuff to protect and now I will have the chance to use it to restore my sequences and all of my pictures, tax data and much more. I will let you know how it turns out.

So far I was able to slap in a spare drive I had and I am waiting for the recovery set to load. This PC is over 4 years old and when I am done, the only stuff on it will be the factory build. It gonna take me weeks to get it back to where it was. I think I had about 90% of my key data backed up on Carbonite. No I dont work for them or sell their package but if all goes as I hope it will, I will sing their praise.

Sequencing is gonna take a back seat.

Rick

[boborino]

Cracker,

I am SO sorry for what you are going through. We have all of our pictures on our main system as well and I have always worried about losing them. I bought a network attached device and copy them to it.. but you just don't think about someone stealing it. Your display and video is inspiring. I had already decided to build at least one face for this Halloween. I wish I had something to offer you as a replacement. I hope you can at least get your data back somehow, shake this off and move on.

[TJ Hvasta]

After seeing this on YT, I decided to make it for my house... Kevin, you did an awesome thing making your display. I hope you find what makes you happy and continue your superb ideas!

ok, I picked up a bunch of 1/2" pvc, elbows, tee's and crosses to build the frame for these. The cow fencing is 48" x 50', $37 at HD. I ordered 150' of 10mm rope and a bunch of ends/plugs for the four faces.. for the smaller faces, I'll add/copy the channels off of the main face and have them just do the chorus.

Looks like one controller would run these (14channels).. I have a lot of Christmas rope light I have to figure out if I can cut these down to length. HD did have several lengths of HunterFan 10mm line, 18", 24", 36", 48" and 60" lengths, but the papers with them said to not shorten the rope.

I'm really looking forward to making these!

TJ

[kneel999]

OK, thanks to Cracker, he has motivated me to build my own faces and start getting my money out of my light-o-rama system. Here are some links to some video's I have taken in my living room. I haven't done any other lights yet, just the faces but I am pretty pleased with the results so far.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks

Monster Mash

Thriller

This is Halloween

Boom Boom Pow

Dead Man's Party

[boborino]

Awsome work! Kneel999 would you be willing to share your sequences? i've been working on these since last year and think you have done an excellent job!

[TJ Hvasta]

Nice job! I ordered 150' of 13mm (they were out of 10mm) orange rope light from CreativeDisplays yesterday, $55 and built the large and one small frame last night, have to do to more small frames today.. then have to roll the chicken wire over them and ziptie it down. Rope's going to be here Thursday..

Kevin, you did a bad thing getting us hooked on this

teege

[boborino]

TJ. Have you built with the 13mm rope yet? I haven't ordered my spools yet as I was afraid they would be too thick to work with. Also, I'm debating between the orange and white. Orange is still white lights inside an orange sleeve.

[TJ Hvasta]

The wife just texted me that UPS dropped two boxes from CreativeDisplays, it's the 13mm orange rope light and plug ends.. I have 13mm white (clear) rope that I had used for the house outline over the last couple yrs, but the shortest piece is still 20' long, I just folded/doubled where I needed to during rough testing (layed it out on the carpet). When it's warmed, it should bend/fold easily enough. I wont be able to try out the new 13mm rope until I get home (I'm on a trip now). I'll let you know how it goes.


As to choosing white over orange.. I goofed.. when I placed the order, I chose 10mm. I didnt pick a color cause I thot absent a color request, it was going to be clear.. nope, they phoned me to ask which I wanted to pick.. turns out they had no clear/white in 10mm (thats why I didnt see it as a choice) so I picked 13mm white for $60/roll... THEN I decided orange was better, called back to change color.. realized way after, I couldv'e switched back to 10mm orange.. > So thats what I got, 13mm orange.

I built four pvc frames (one 6'x6', three 4'x4'), got one of the small ones covered with the cattle fencing (2"x4" grid), used 30 zipties to secure it.. wish I had snapped a pix of it, but was already 8:30p and dark out..

Hardest trouble I'm having is seeing how Kevin actually routed each mouth sections.. printing it out on my monchrome laser printer, its difficult to see.. I had to look at the color pix on the page here and use highlighters to mark which rope was which channel and even then not sure if I'm going to have the small face mouths routed right.. I know it's all interpretation, but his were boffo!

teege

[Scott T]

I was NOT going to do Halloween, BUT you know how it goes with an addictive personality. I found myself digging through my Christmas lights looking for rope lights. Does anyone have the sequencing for these songs?

[boborino]

Whenever you get to snap pics would be great! Have a safe trip.

I took Kevins video and paused them, then wiggled back and forth when the mouths changed to figure out the routing... still am not convinced, but I think I'm going with white. That way where they overlap, the rope is clear so it shouldn't interfere much.

How many connections will you end up using? I was planning on ordering about 15.. but if I make 4 faces, won't I need about 20?

[kneel999]

I'm not sure how you are making the faces but I used 2 for the eyes so the can blink.
The mouth uses 5 connections. An upper lip, middle lip, lower lip, open mouth, and circle mouth.
So, 7 connections per face x 4 faces equaled 28 connections for my 4 faces.

[boborino]

Last question for the night.. .did you do each square with 2ft pieces with T, L and X connectiors of 1/2" PVC? I was wondering if I needed to paint them black?

I found some rope light on ebay for a great price, but you can only cut in 3ft increments. What is the shortest distance you can cut the rope you have, and how critical is it? If you can't cut it as short as you need, do you cover the unused portion with black tape? (I'll probably figure more out when I actually start the build)

[kneel999]

I welded 1/2" emt together for the frames. I didn't use pvc.
I bought white, red, and purple rope light and the white can only be cut in 3' increments so I did have to wrap some sections with black tape. The orange and purple can be cut at 18" intervals. I don't know why

[nerdifiedgeek]

Hey all, first post I've done on here

I just started my light show last Christmas, and I plan on doing something for halloween this fall. I plan on doing a talking pumpkin or some other kind of face. I was looking at actionlighting.com as suggested, and they have some rope light on sale right now.

http://www.actionlighting.com/item-detail.asp?ID=2220&MainCategory=Specials&Sub=,3 Wire - 1/2 Inch Chasing Rope Light & Accessories

1/2 inch might be a little too thick, but what would everyone's oppinion of this be?


(Sorry for the issues with the link, the way the site displays the link doesn't post very well)

[boborino]

nerdifiedgeek wrote:

Hey all, first post I've done on here

I just started my light show last Christmas, and I plan on doing something for halloween this fall. I plan on doing a talking pumpkin or some other kind of face. I was looking at actionlighting.com as suggested, and they have some rope light on sale right now.

http://www.actionlighting.com/item-detail.asp?ID=2220&MainCategory=Specials&Sub=,3 Wire - 1/2 Inch Chasing Rope Light & Accessories

1/2 inch might be a little too thick, but what would everyone's oppinion of this be?


(Sorry for the issues with the link, the way the site displays the link doesn't post very well)

Well, you're gonna want 2 wire if you want to control it with LOR. 3 wire is for chase lights and generally you don't setup chasers with LOR. 3/8 would certainly be easier to bend, but if you are doing faces, they are so large you don't have to worry much about bend ratio.

As for sale prices, be careful! Look at the end price with shipping. If you get free shipping and that sale price great! But most places charge about 25$ for shipping of the reels. I found some on Ebay for $69 including shipping with 5 connectors. Connector packs range from $10 - $20 depending on where you get them. As you can see from above, I'm going to need around 28 or so myself.

[nerdifiedgeek]

Thanks for the information! I had no idea 3 wire was for chaser lights. This shows my lack of knowledge...

What is everyones suggestion between these 2 options..

http://www.creativedisplays.com/siteresources/modules/webstore/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=919

http://www.actionlighting.com/item-detail.asp?ID=592&MainCategory=Incandescent Rope Light&Sub=2 Wire - 3/8 Inch Rope Light & Accessories

[boborino]

"Hardest trouble I'm having is seeing how Kevin actually routed each mouth sections.. printing it out on my monchrome laser printer, its difficult to see.. I had to look at the color pix on the page here and use highlighters to mark which rope was which channel and even then not sure if I'm going to have the small face mouths routed right.. I know it's all interpretation, but his were boffo"



TJ, I've looked at a few other mouth patterns and they don't seem as well defined as Kevin's did. I too have blown up the pictures and tried to decipher the 5 channels. I kept coming up with 4, until I discovered that the big mouth has the top and bottom as two channels, I thought they were always on at the same time, but I found a few where the smile and top lip were on together to make the mouth look half open without the eh sound. I think he has the correct concept of the top of the mouth is constant and all movement is below. I worked with puppets and that's what you learn, upper lip is stable, lower lip/jaw moves. The stationary, or smile seems to be in the middle of the mouth and not the bottom.

[Keith Adams]

I used 3/8" rope light attached to what is called hardware cloth from Lowes/Home Depot. I attach it with cable ties. I have been doing it since 2008 as I saw Kumbaric's 2007 Halloween show on Youtube. The 3/8" is more flexible.

[TJ Hvasta]

For the large frame I used 24" (well, 22 1/2") pvc lengths, T's or L's at the corners or midpoints, for 6" total lengths. Yyou have to make each stick 22 1/2"-ish so that the -total- length of each side is right AT 6' (or 4' for the smaller frames), so the 48" cow fencing/chicken wire will sit on the frame, not be inside it for stability and ease of ziptieing it down. The frames will be against my garage eave, it's white so I'll leave the frames the white color.

I looked at a bunch of different companys for rope light and the best I found was CDI (CreativeDisplays.com).. $55/150' roll of 10mm, or $60/roll of 13mm, 8 sets of 3 connectors/ends $30, $33 shipping.. came to $173.xx. Delivered Thursday but I'm not home yet so I havent seen it. CDI's rope can be cut in 18" lengths.. you can cut any rope, but you must cut it at the proper marks, something btwn 18"-24" or you'll interupt the line to the rest of the lights and it kills that length. (see Chuck's link below for how/where to cut). You can cover it with tape or paint (really dark tho)

Bob and everyone else, I discovered how to do your own plugs from Chuck's PC page but after I ordered them from CDI. Wish I saw that before, but I'll have 24 plugs/ends/splices to make more faces with. Here's his link for powering the rope.: http://planetchristmas.com/RopeLight.htm If you follow this, you can save $30+ on plugs just using zipline and heatshrink tubing.

I spent abt 3hrs adding a face for the chorus of Thriller.. It's 16ch with 14ch used (7/face.. 1-7, 9-15) It's still pretty rough, just posted it on lorsequences.com if anyone wants it. I'm going to run 3 chorus faces (have the frames built already) and the main face, so three chorus faces will be paralled into 7channels. I had thot of using 21 channels to do the chorus (multiple controllers), different blinking eyes but realized I can use the 2 spare channels to randomize the eye blinking and not tie up several just for this.. I'm still working out how to plug what into where..

MJ's Thriller with one chorus face:
http://lightoramasequences.com/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,42/func,fileinfo/id,497/

The idea is to get it to look like Kevin's original video:

I'm going to try adding chorus faces to MonsterMash and GhostBusters but it prob wont be til Friday/Saturday when I'm on my next trip.

ScottT, here is the Thriller at lorsequences.com, it's the 7ch original.. just "MJ's" face, no chorus faces: http://lightoramasequences.com/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,42/func,fileinfo/id,345/

Whichever rope you use, plug it in, let it warm up before you start to mold/fold it for mounting, and the smaller the easier to fold.. I picked up a bag of 1000 eight inch zipties from HD for $17.. lil pricey but the 4" arent long enough to go around the pvc and rope light both. I used 30 ties/4' frame.

I dont get home until Sunday evening, Mon-Wed are my days off so I'll play with these then and post how it goes.. Good luck..

teege

[CLD Kevin]

Hello all...

It looks like you all been busy. Neal...looks good.

I see there are still some questions. I’ve been traveling a lot and have very little time to work on any sequencing. Been slowly working on all new songs. Unless I take a 2 months vacation, I don’t see much getting done. That’s unfortunate for me because I have some good idea’s and just don’t have the time.

I used 7chs per face. 2 for the eyes and 5 for the mouth for a total of 28 chs for all 4 faces. I used 1/2" rope for the main or larger face and 3/8” for the others. 3/8” is better to work with and has a better flex, but I notice that has more issues with sections burning out. Suxs to replace after it’s already up and 20ft in the air. If you notice one of the bulbs burnt out in the section...replace it cause that whole 18” section will eventually burn out and you don’t want that to happen in the middle of your show. That’s the only bad thing about using rope light. When a section burns out...its 18” long and very noticeable. I bought all my rope light and connectors from Actionlighting. No particular reason other than thier 2-wire clear comes in 18" sections.

The positions of the mouth seems to be a big question. The upper, middle and lower are all separate channels. The smile is the middle position. The top is always ON and just the middle and bottom turns on and off unless the “E” or “O” position are on, then it’s off. The pic shows each channel by color. Hope this makes it clear. Any more questions...ask away.

BTW...I received a bunch on PM asking to share my sequences. For those who sent me a PM...If you read my earlier post, I don’t have them anymore. My house was broken into and my PC was stolen with my files. I do have some stuff I’m working on now, but sorry I want to use them first...if I ever get to use them. Depends on time.

Kevin

Attached files