Ron Boyd Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I modified a design that I found earlier in the year. The drawing is for a fan arch but is easily modified for a leaping arch also. Just removr the long sweep 90's and wrap lights on arch section instead of string the fan.Only costs about $10 to build and then add lights. This is my first year, and I've learned so much that I thought I'd share some of my ideas. Hope this might be helpful, especially for first timers.Merry Christmas all,Ron Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 First, welcome to the addiction and madness that is LOR.. There's no turning back now.. Second, thats a good design, but many are using sleeeves for the arch wraps as it's a lot easier replacing bad sections or swapping colors Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GS Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Design looks nice. Use leds and you will not have replacment issues. Correction - use good leds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 LEDs, you still cant swap out colors without unwrapping. Go with sleeves, you WONT be sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Boyd Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 Folks, I hope all of you see this. Use 3/4" for this if you make it. 1/2" didn't work so well when I started wrapping the lights. I rebuil mine with 3/4" and it's much more sturdy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner518 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 TJ Hvasta wrote: LEDs, you still cant swap out colors without unwrapping. Go with sleeves, you WONT be sorry.By far, I agree!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert seguin, jr. Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 the sleeves are they one seeve per channel, how many light per sleeves, planning for next year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Boyd Posted December 22, 2011 Author Share Posted December 22, 2011 everything that I've read is 100 to 250 lights per channel, (ie 100 clear or white, 200 clear or white or any combination and a 50 ct string of blue added.) On the fan I built, I used 100 clear on 8 channels and 100 blur on 8 channels for a total of 1600 lights and 16 channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 Mine are 100ct single strings per sleeve, 8 sleeves per arch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CKSedg Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 Mine are 120 (two 60 ct. strings) per section, with 7 sections per arch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 TJ,How long are your sleaves? Even though my arches were made before some wise guy got the idea of sleaves. Sure wish I had heard about the sleaves before I built my arches. I might have to rebuild one day and would like to do sleaves next time. Oh and was that 1" in dia.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 The sleeve length I guess depends on the length of the string and bulb spacing.. my string length is 23' and spacing is abt 2 1/2" so wrapping them made an 11" sleeve with 1 1/4" pvc.. the bulbs tend to line up in rows (as you can see in the picture) but at 10' sidewalk to arch, you can't tell.. I started with a 14" sleeve, wrapped then cut the extra off with the bandsaw.. yes, trimmed the sleeve with the lights on the sleeve. After the 3rd one I pre-trimmed the sleeves to 11". If you use then 1 1/2" sleeve pipe it should easily fit 1/2" support pipe. And my bases are just over 6' wide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Don Gillespie Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 Max-Paul wrote: TJ,How long are your sleaves? Even though my arches were made before some wise guy got the idea of sleaves. Sure wish I had heard about the sleaves before I built my arches. I might have to rebuild one day and would like to do sleaves next time. Oh and was that 1" in dia.?The sleeves that I use Max-Paul are 16 inches long I use 7 per arch wrapped with 100 cnt minis they looked fantastic, I did have one go out this year it took me all of 40 seconds to replace on the arch as I made 2 extra sleeves in case some thing like this happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 It all depends on string length and bulb spacing.. I wondered how they were getting 16" sleeves, but their strings were 30+ feet and 3-4" spacing, that's why the longer sleeves.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 Thanks TJ and Don,Yes I would be using CDI LED strings that have 4" spacing between lamps. Sounds like I would need the 16" sleeves.Once again, Thanks gents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 You can pick up a 8'-10' 1 1/2" pipe from HD or Lowes and wrap one, see how long it gets, mark and cut.. make 7-9 more just liek that.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightzilla Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 dariansdad wrote: I modified a design that I found earlier in the year. The drawing is for a fan arch but is easily modified for a leaping arch also. Just removr the long sweep 90's and wrap lights on arch section instead of string the fan.Only costs about $10 to build and then add lights. This is my first year, and I've learned so much that I thought I'd share some of my ideas. Hope this might be helpful, especially for first timers.Merry Christmas all,RonI made something similar to this for 2011 and I even added hooks to the 3/4" Grey PVC pipe for quicker attaching the lights & taking them off. I even had stands for the fans so that it can stay free standing. I made the fan 10ft long but the PVC was still to weak & so I went back to the 12ft fan I used last year that was made out of a trampoline. Perfect arch & very strong. It had 3360 LEDs on it. 3 strings of 70 count per channel (slice, pie shape, wedge & any other name you want to add).However I saved the arch poles with hooks in them and put them on the trampoline arch fan. Good clean hook up. I bolted the 3/4 PVC pipe with the hooks in it to the trampoline frame.The remaining PVC pieces were used on my Matrix to help keep the poles straight.I used sleeves for my Matrix poles and each sleeve was 10" in length and housed a 70 count LED light string that was folded in half for a better looking sleeve. Folding the light string in half and having the bulbs look as though they were 2" apart gave a way better look.I never made my arches like most arches using mini lights or LED lights simply because I just don't have the money to add as much lights as I would like to to the arches & the fact I will not go into debt for my display pretty much made up my mind how I would build my arches. However, if I made my arches the way most of you do I would use sleeves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Boyd Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 how did you light your arches? looks like c9's, am i correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarlSmith Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 That is one awesome rendering Ron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretk Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Ron, awesome and original music choices too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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