Mini Tree Design Ideas

[JPTXPilot]

I am thinking of adding 12 mini trees in my display and looking for best practices on how others are doing this.   I am planning on having the trees with R-G-W lights and connecting them with 18-Gauge SPT-2 vampire plugs, then waterproofing.   Wondering what would be the best from a sequence planning standpoint in terms of how many channels I should devote to these (3 colors = at least 3 separate channels, but should I break out into 4 groups of 3, 3 groups of 4 ?  Looking for some veteran advice.

[Joe Polenchar]

JP,

     12 mini trees each tree has 3 colors R-G-W that would be a total of 36 channels. This would give you the best control and the most effects that you could sequence.

That is also a lot of channels. You could save half of those channels if you took your 12 trees and use 18 channels for the first 6 trees and mirror the second 6 trees.

An example would be a chase in say green from left to right trees 1 thru 6 trees 7 thru 12 would chase in green from right to left. I myself would not do the groups of 3 or 4.

My reasoning is that it would look too choppy. Example trees 1 2 3 4 would all be on at the same time. Then 5 6 7 8 would be on next etc. You would not get a nice flow. In my opinion you want the mini trees to look like they are walking in your lawn. I have 16 mini trees each tree is 2 colors and yes they use 32 channels. This is just my opinion. Hope this helps you out. I am sure others may help out with other ideas.

[gmac]

I agree with Joe..........But if you can spare the channels use the 36 you will like the outcome much more.

[bisquit476]

I have 10 100ct RGBW mini tree's and a larger tree with 300 of each color, all the colors are on seperate channels, so I use 44 channels for my mini's. I like to do that to mix and match the colors, that's part of the reason I don't use pixels yet, you only get one color with them.

[George Simmons]

 ... that's part of the reason I don't use pixels yet, you only get one color with them.

 

I'm not following your train of thought.  With dumb pixels the entire strip would be one color - but it can be any color you want. 

 

With smart pixels, each pixel can be any color you want any time you want.

[JPTXPilot]

Thanks for the tips.  I think I'm going to go with 36 channels and love the advice and insight.  Thanks!

[bisquit476]

What I mean George is with 4 individual strings I can light RGW together if I want, GB, RB, BW, or any of the 4 color combinations, which give a lot different look to the tree. Smart pixels may give individual colors, but unless they are bunched together very close, each pixel can have no more than one color at one time. I have my 4 bulbs ziptied right next to each other, so I can have 4 colors lit at the same time if I want.