mega tree lighting strings....

[amtrak115]

I'm a semi-newbie...a Sophomore ....with respect to LOR and animated lighting for christmas.  This past year was my first year using LOR.  My wife had visions of Chevy Chase's Christmas house, however I didn't go that far.  I built a "Northpole" with a DMX globe on top, Two DMX arches and then through strings of lights across the bushes (both Net and straight strings).  I also had Ican icicle lights and a couple of holidaycoro xmas trees.  All in all I was running about 20 lor channels on two controllers and approximated 66 RGB channels across DMX.  The light show was a success and my wife was very happy.  (She's a Christmas Nut.  She decorated 10 christmas trees inside our house. )  This year My big project is a 20 foot Mega tree.  I've bought Darryl Browns Mega tree Kit with a 3-d star.  The star will be 9 rgb channels, (Holidaycoro strips) and I was planning on using LED's for a spiral tree.  I'm planning 48  new LOR channels for the mega tree (16 Red, 16 white, and 16 Blue).  So here's the question.  I would like some recommendations on LED Light strings.  Based on the spiral tree spreadsheet that I'm using, each string needs to be 40-44 foot long, so any suggestions/recommendations for LED strings would be appreciated.

 

BTW.  if anyone is interested.  I uploaded two videos to Vimeo...the first is my Halloween display.  (All DMX, used the sequencer from the free download of LOR and transfered the show to use XLIGHTS for actual display.

 

  https://vimeo.com/52348536

 

The second video is a Cell phone capture of my christmas display.  I did the entire christmas show, including ordering controllers (2), building the arches.  (the arches) aren't in this sequence, the sequencing between Halloween and the 10th of Dec or so this past year..

 

https://vimeo.com/55186343

 

thanks for any suggestions or help

 

Barry

[kelly jett]

hey barry,

 

welcome to the insanity. 

 

i may have a helpful suggestion for you.  i know you said you were gonna do 16 red, white and blue strings for your mega tree.

just something you may think of is using red, blue, and green and making fake rgb strings.  the reason i say this is because you can put the 3 strings together and tell the sequence editor that you have an rgb string (you already have a little experience with them) and treat them like a dumb rgb string and get lots of colors and options with just the 3 strings.

 

i did it on my display and attached them to some pvc pipe and made a 12 wide mickey mouse (the 3 circles) and was able to treat it like an rgb string and change the colors all i want.   you can't get the millions of colors like a rgb strip cause the leds just aren't that close together but you can get some really neat colors and blends.  i got alot of complements about it.

 

it give you the same idea as an rgb string but it only uses 3 channels (which your using anyway) and you'll not be stuck with just 3 colors.

 

what you do is you get 3 led strings that are spaced apart the same(just makes it easier) and you twist tie or zip tie the leds together and use it like any other string of lights.  but with more control.

 

i tried to link a couple pics that i have but for some reason i can't get photobucket to load right.  i'll try later and if i can get it to work i'll send you the link.

 

you can see it working. here's a video of it.

 

 

any questions let me know. 

[kelly jett]

barry,

i also did "reflections of earth"   it shows the fake rgb string doing alot more changes.  you can get alot of colors as well as

have the string fade for color to color.  you can get alot of neat of effects with a pretty easy way to do it.

 

that video should pop up as an option after the the previous video.  if you can't get it or find it let me know and i'll send you the link.

 

good luck