Jump to content
Light-O-Rama Forums

2012 The Colony Christmas Spectacular, found on Youtube


-klb-

Recommended Posts

We generally don't video our own shows any more, but sometimes we find ones that people have posted. This is the 6th year of this show, with the city funding all the hardware, and all construction & assembly done by volunteers. I did enough work this year on construction and technical that I did not contribute any of the sequencing, and all of the sequences are done by 3 volunteers this year. In fact, I still have not calculated how many lights are in this year's show, but a rough estimate is around 130,000, with a lot of C7 bulbs in the mix.

The 6, 14 foot tall mega trees are new, replacing 5 live trees that had to be removed from the power line easement over the last year. The 32 x 85 pixel tree replaces 64 strands of C7 (16 of each color). The 6 vertical poles in the park are all LED replacement (red & white) for the incandescent white only ones from last year. Three of the liberated incandescent ones were added to the front of the fire station, bringing it from just the 4 surrounding the bays, to 7 covering the full front of the building. In fact those 7 verticals are the only incandescent lights left in the display. With 32 strings on each vertical, they are about 10A all on, so we are really trying to get them converted next year as well.

The park side has a dedicated 400A service, added during the 2nd year (considerably over sized now that everything in the park is finally converted to LED) with in ground vaults with removable cord sets so power is close to utilization.

The first year, funding was scarce, so a 21 circuit sub panel was installed on the back of the fire house. Everything in the display was powered on 12 gauge extension cords from there for the first year, and we won't speak to the conduit fill in the 3 inch conduit under the alley that separates the fire house and park. This year, we finally got 2 50A (220v) seasonal use sub panels, one at each of the front corners of the fire house. So we no longer have large numbers of 12 Ga cords running down either side of the building.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DPBMDv6oquwQ&ct=ga&cad=CAcQAhgAIAEoATAAOABAnMDbhgVIAVgAYgVlbi1VUw&cd=WAKYrY9Bs-Q&usg=AFQjCNHVS0AXpSQpbpdbpFfifZvst6GYvw

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The large pixel tree is nice. May i ask what its constructed with (pixel strips?)

They are Stella Black pixels. They are cable tied to 1/16th coated aircraft cable. They are hung pointed up. The weight of the wiring, and pixels helps keep the cable out front , and the data wire on the back, keeping a free view on the front. It is actually working a bit better than expected. See the attached. The data cable is never in any of the cable ties, and should never be carrying any of the tension, so we can keep several pounds of tension in the aircraft cable.

post-516-0-25910900-1356321511_thumb.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friday, Jan 4th is the last show. Also let me know if there are any details you want more info on.

Actually, the less I know about a display when I see it, the more I can just watch it like a normal guess; instead of dissecting it piece by piece.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great show and Love the tree. I hope to do something like this in 2013. Please tell me what stops the light from being blocked by the wire out of the pixel going into the next one? Plus what controller was use?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The weight is being carried by tha aircraft cable. There is enough slope on the aircraft cable that the pixels and wire naturally fall to the back, though some effort was made to ensure no twists in the aircraft cable, and consistent pixel alignment when putting it together. This includes all the pixels being installed while the cable is stretched out horizontal between a tree and a fence post.

The controller is the matching Stellascapes Q16 controller. If I was doing this personally, it probably would have been 2801 based pixels and sandevices E682 controllers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • The topic was locked
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...