Leaping light arches

[John2571]

For 2011 I am building new leaping light arches for my christmas display(all of my lights are LED but my arches) and I was wondering if anyone would like to buy them from me. Each arch is wrapped with 800 lights(8 channels/sections) and is made from 3/4inch gray pvc pipe(two 7 foot pieces). These arches will include cords(ziptied onto the back of the arch) and all the lights are WHITE. All arches are in great condition but one of the arches(where they connect) will snap unless a piece of metal pipe(I used a 8inch piece that was laying arround) is inside the pipe(I will include if nessisary). The steaks for the grould are 1foot long pvc pipe pieces and have held up well for the two years I have used them(I recommend duct taping them to be shure:P. These arches will not be avalible until I am able to digg them out of the snow(could be Feb. or May lol). The picing for each will be $30 (If you could give more that would be great). Buyer will pay shipping costs (or can come and pick them up themselves). PM me for other information.



John

[rodman1369]

Just on the off chance these are still stuck in the snow...

Are these still available? Any idea of shipping to Austin, Texas 78747?



Might be prohibitive...but I am new to LOR and want to impress my wife.

Thanks

I left a PM but not sure you received?

[John2571]

Still in the snow. (in VA for vacation now so not shure) As of 5 days ago they were still in 3ft of snow. Lets say they will be out in june:D.

[John2571]

These arches are now sold!

[TJ Hvasta]

Really, those looking for arches, it's just -too- easy to build them using the sleeve method of construction. Seriously, it takes just under 9 minutes to wrap a 12" long sleeeve using a single 100ct, 22' string of white lights, which means you can build one complete 8 segment arch in abt an hour..

Buy a 10', 1/2" pvc pipe. Buy a 10', 1 1/2"(inch and a half) or 1 3/4" (inch and three quarters) pipe. cut the 1 1/2" (or 1 3/4") into 12" lengths. Tightly wrap each sleeve with a single set of lights. drill each end of the sleeve and ziptie the lights to the sleeve. Repeat 7 more times. You have a finished set (and easier to store). Slide 8 sleeves on the 10', 1/2" pipe. Gently bend into an arch (abt 6' spread at the base). Repeat 3 more times. Gives you 4 archs.

Look at the picture.. you can see four of the eight wrapped sleeves on the floor. Eight of them on the arch.. Each arch, minus cutting the sleeves, took an hour to wrap.

I'm not saying you shouldnt help someone out trying to upgrade to LED arches by not buying theirs, just it isnt costly, or difficult or too long to wrap your own.. jus' sayin'...

Attached files

[Guest guest]

So I'm the knucklehead who bought them..on a whim.

Just trying to help out a poor 12 year old kid with no money (that comment made with tongue firmly in cheek..)..

Along with that, likely going to build a few additional of my own...thanks for the quick tutorial/reminder on the sleeve process.

[Guest guest]

So long story short, the purchase didn't happen...looks like the sleeve method for me for my first arches.

[PaulXmas]

DonFL wrote:

So long story short, the purchase didn't happen...looks like the sleeve method for me for my first arches.

OR you might look at using CCRs ...

This is my first year using arches.

Doing the math...$200 for the controller and $200 or so for LEDs is $400

CCR is $250 and will do 2 (8 foot) arches in a bazzilion colours.

[Guest guest]

I'm doing incandescents, and already have the controller..

Not at all CCR-savvy, but how would you do the arch? Just attach it to whatever material you use for the arch, or spiral it?

[PaulXmas]

DonFL wrote:

I'm doing incandescents, and already have the controller..

Not at all CCR-savvy, but how would you do the arch? Just attach it to whatever material you use for the arch, or spiral it?

Just attach them to 2 (10 foot) peices of PVC.

I am just using the one colour this year and olny doing simple chases.

[CKSedg]

PaulXmas wrote:

DonFL wrote:

I'm doing incandescents, and already have the controller..

Not at all CCR-savvy, but how would you do the arch? Just attach it to whatever material you use for the arch, or spiral it?

Just attach them to 2 (10 foot) peices of PVC.

I am just using the one colour this year and olny doing simple chases.

I made six arches last year, with seven segments per arch. I used LED lights. This "little" addition was so expensive. I sure wish I had known about CCRs then.

[Ron Amedee]

DonFL wrote

I'm doing incandescents, and already have the controller..

Not at all CCR-savvy, but how would you do the arch? Just attach it to whatever material you use for the arch, or spiral it?

Don just wire tie LOOSLY to the 3/4 electrical conduit at the cut points. The ribbon can be flexed to a point but is pretty fragile if you flex it too tight!!!! I would use a 3" max flex long ways and don't flex as much as possible the ribbon width. There are alot of IC'c and small components throughout.

[jstorms]

PaulXmas wrote:
This is my first year using arches.

Doing the math...$200 for the controller and $200 or so for LEDs is $400

CCR is $250 and will do 2 (8 foot) arches in a bazzilion colours.


I'm not doing arches for 2011, but thinking to do it for 2012 and I'm thinking of doing it with CCRs for this same reason. The only thing is there isn't the same density of lights using CCRs.

[Ron Amedee]

jstorms wrote

I'm not doing arches for 2011, but thinking to do it for 2012 and I'm thinking of doing it with CCRs for this same reason. The only thing is there isn't the same density of lights using CCRs.

The briteness off CCR's make up for the density lost!!!

[rgardner518]

Ron Amedee wrote:

jstorms wrote

I'm not doing arches for 2011, but thinking to do it for 2012 and I'm thinking of doing it with CCRs for this same reason. The only thing is there isn't the same density of lights using CCRs.

The briteness off CCR's make up for the density lost!!!

Yea but after christmas sales can get you 100ct lights cheap! I have 80 boxes I bought for $40! I still think doing incandescents, is cheapper than CCR's! Enev though you don't need a controller with CCR's, its easier to fix incandescents if they break!

[caniac]

ny_yankee_25 wrote:

Ron Amedee wrote:

jstorms wrote

I'm not doing arches for 2011, but thinking to do it for 2012 and I'm thinking of doing it with CCR's for this same reason. The only thing is there isn't the same density of lights using CCR's.

The brightness off CCR's make up for the density lost!!!

Yea but after Christmas sales can get you 100ct lights cheap! I have 80 boxes I bought for $40! I still think doing incandescent, is cheaper than CCR's! Enev though you don't need a controller with CCR's, its easier to fix incandescent if they break!

yep but CCR's are cheaper than doing the same thing with LED's.

[jerrymac]

I also thought Incandescent was cheaper (so I kept that way), then as I was buying more controllers and adding more sections to the arch's then how about 3 different colors with 8 sections (24 channels which is 1 1/2 controllers for EACH arch). The light shown much more brightly !!! 1 CCR = 2 arch's with as many sections as I want, as many colors as I can program, The $225.00 got cheaper every thought. As well as freeing up 3 controllers for other things really put it over the edge. let alone the multiple of having 4 archs for the cost of 2 CCR' VS 6 controllers 128 strings of lights and 2,000 bottles of liniment for the wrist issue wrapping that many strings.

[caniac]

jerrymac wrote:

I also thought Incandescent was cheaper (so I kept that way), then as I was buying more controllers and adding more sections to the arch's then how about 3 different colors with 8 sections (24 channels which is 1 1/2 controllers for EACH arch). The light shown much more brightly !!! 1 CCR = 2 arch's with as many sections as I want, as many colors as I can program, The $225.00 got cheaper every thought. As well as freeing up 3 controllers for other things really put it over the edge. let alone the multiple of having 4 archs for the cost of 2 CCR' VS 6 controllers 128 strings of lights and 2,000 bottles of liniment for the wrist issue wrapping that many strings.

lmao!!!:dude::dude:

[Guest guest]

jerrymac wrote:

I also thought Incandescent was cheaper (so I kept that way), then as I was buying more controllers and adding more sections to the arch's then how about 3 different colors with 8 sections (24 channels which is 1 1/2 controllers for EACH arch). The light shown much more brightly !!! 1 CCR = 2 arch's with as many sections as I want, as many colors as I can program, The $225.00 got cheaper every thought. As well as freeing up 3 controllers for other things really put it over the edge. let alone the multiple of having 4 archs for the cost of 2 CCR' VS 6 controllers 128 strings of lights and 2,000 bottles of liniment for the wrist issue wrapping that many strings.

Hadn't thought about cost of controller assuming adding some would be needed for arches.

I need to relook at it, but with a single color, controllers in hand, and not real crazy about diving into CCRs at this point, I'll likely stay as is..for this year at least.

Thanks for the insight.

[caniac]

DonFL wrote:

jerrymac wrote:

I also thought Incandescent was cheaper (so I kept that way), then as I was buying more controllers and adding more sections to the arch's then how about 3 different colors with 8 sections (24 channels which is 1 1/2 controllers for EACH arch). The light shown much more brightly !!! 1 CCR = 2 arch's with as many sections as I want, as many colors as I can program, The $225.00 got cheaper every thought. As well as freeing up 3 controllers for other things really put it over the edge. let alone the multiple of having 4 archs for the cost of 2 CCR' VS 6 controllers 128 strings of lights and 2,000 bottles of liniment for the wrist issue wrapping that many strings.

Hadn't thought about cost of controller assuming adding some would be needed for arches.

I need to relook at it, but with a single color, controllers in hand, and not real crazy about diving into CCRs at this point, I'll likely stay as is..for this year at least.

Thanks for the insight.

same here, for me it isn't a cost issue as much as I am still trying to wrap my head around some of the basic stuff for now.