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Mega Trees How Many Channels?


redsea300

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I was thinking about doing a Mega Tree for next year. Probably about 15 feet high. Do I do 16 channels around with 4 colors each(R/G/B/W) this would be a 64 channel tree or should I do 8 around times 4 colors for only 32 channels. What are you doing and what works well?

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Hi,



I have a sorta-mega tree which is mounted on my yacht for a marine display. I use 8 segments times 3 colors (R,B,G) for a total of 24 channels. The lights are LEDS and are mounted in tiny reflectors in RGB triads (2400 total leds). 8 segments is probably the minimum you want to use for a decent effect; more would be better. The tree is 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide at the base, so modest in size. Due to the triads, I can make almost any color I want because they mix fairly well in the reflectors. You can see the tree (barely) in my avatar.



Jerry

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The more channels, the better you can define the actions of your tree. My tree currently is 16 channels, 2 colors. Next year going 3 colors 24 channels. I would love to go 4 colors with 16 channels per color, but that is beyond my financial means.

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The more channels, the better for coming up with cool effects. I don't do slices, but rather have channels going all around. The reason is some effects simply look better if only half the tree does it (like the 'broom' effect, where strands go back and forth in time to the music). If the back of the tree is involved in the sweep, it doesn't have a swaying feel.

When I had a small 22 foot mega tree, I had 72 channels, and each strand was a red, green and blue. The big megas now are a totally different animal.

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I am only going to do a 16-20 foot high tree. I figured I am going to use 16 channels times 4 colors(R,G,B,W m5 led), 6 channels on the animated stars and 1 channel for strobes. That is a total of 71 channels.

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This was my first year that I had mega trees. Each about 14 feet tall. They are only half trees since they are against the wall of my house. I used one controller per tree, with 8 channels of one color and 8 of another. I wound the two colors of lights together. So in a sense, I only have 8 channels for a half tree.

I was disappointed with the results. They are Just "OK." Next year I will double the number of channels. I guess what I'm saying is that for a round tree, 32 channels would be my minimum recommendation.

And speaking of the number of lights, I used mini lights. Each (half) tree has 1600 lights. Dull. Way more lights are in order.

Next year ...

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My tree is 64 channels. 16 spokes each of Red, Blue, Green and Warm White LEDs. The height is approximately 17 feet because that is the middle of a 100 count strand (at least the CDI strands). Last year's tree (in my avatar on the left) was the same channel count but with 50 count strings. Much nicer and fuller this year.

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My 20 foot tree uses 64 channels of a single color (red). 16 channels would look too "anemic" for my tastes.

In retrospect I should have probably gone with 60 channels as you can better sequence it to music, using 3/4 or 4/4 time, etc.. I came up with 64 for 2 reasons - my controllers, and I like 6 inche spacing between strings where they are attached to the circumference of the hoop at the base. No one notices the slight difference of 4 extra strings!

My display is sequenced a little differently than the approach many others use. I use the beat of the song for only very a small part of the display (house washes and diamonds lining the windows). I use other display elements to represent the vocals and instrumentals (which are broken down into strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, etc).

Greg

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My two big trees are 192 channels, which boils down to 64 channels three times around for red, green and blue. I find 64 works great for 4/4 timing, since it's divisible by 8 (us computer guys like powers of two anyway).

Just curious, why do you think 60 would be better/easier?

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For 3/4 time - 64 isn't divisible by that, whereas 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, channels etc are all divisible by both 3 and 4, so they cover both sets of timings....

It's not a big deal, especially with most of the sequences out there....

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Good point, though. I'm like you, in that I sequence musically. I always lay down a beat and make sure it's divisible by 4, 8 or 16. Then I make sure all display elements are built with the same multiples of channels.

Fortunately I haven't done a 3/4 time song yet!

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16 x 4 colors. The white, red and blue are 16 each = 48 channels. The green is there but inactive. When I program for next year the green or blue will all be on one channel for a total of 49 channels. If budgets are a concern try alternating 16 channels between 3 colors. Each leg is a different color so if you have 16 legs, you could have 5 red, 5 green and 6 white.

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  • 8 months later...

Hello,



sorry for not replying; I haven't been on the forum for months. My tree is only 9 feet high since it sits on top of a yacht and has to survive the boat moving. I use 8 channels for motion and three different colors thus a total of 24 channels. It works fairly well although one couod always wish for more motion channels to make it smoother. However, the programming then becomes more cumbersome. I use all LEDS, but they are highly focused (as noted earlier) and as a result, they are BRIGHT. Hope this helps.



Jerry

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This year I have made a few changes to mine. My Mega Tree is 30 feet tall with 32 strands of RGW zip-tied together. I am using 16ch per color (2 strands per ch) with a total of 50ch for the Mega (1 for the star, 1 for 32 strobes).

Last year I had 3 ch for 16 strands of RGW, 1 ch for each color.

Jeremy B.

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Salts wrote:

LOL this sounds like a Mine is bigger than yours game!!!

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a rooster sizing contest. lol
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yeah but remember, size doesnt matter, its what you -do- with it ;)

Last year was my first mega tree trial, it was only 12' (pvc) with a 7' hoop base, I only no single-color strings at all to use on it, so I had to use 16 multis, folded, which gave me 32 legs run by 16 channels.. it looked fairly good spinning, as thats really all it did for my first attempt. Neighbors didnt care it was multi colored, just that it was up. 2010 will have the same 32 legs but separate RGBW strings ziptied together will replace the multi strings, and 64 of my 128channels will run it leaving the other 64 for the house lights and arches.. hmmm, I'm running out of channels just talking about it :)

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TJ Hvasta wrote:

yeah but remember, size doesnt matter, its what you -do- with it ;)

hmmm, I'm running out of channels just talking about it :)


Now there are the two wises sayings on this forum.
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