derekb Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I will be starting on building and designing a "hopefully" awesome megatree in January for next year's display. I like having RGB ability, and I like the spiraling effects. If you were to build one, what would you use? multiple strings of different colors of regular LED minis, CCB, CCP, CCR, anything else, etc. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hans Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I think your first step is building a budget. The options you listed mean your tree could range in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars You also need to consider your time budget as your list also goes from fairly simple sequencing to quite involved. Once you have a realistic time and money budget, we can help with some ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainyoregonchristmas Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Depending on your willingness to invest financially in the project there are two different directions I might head. If $ is no object, by all means go CCR, or CCB. You can't beat the customer support and service. If you want the RGB, and are DIY capable I would definitely go DIY with RGB. You will get a far higher light count going the DIY route, but you won't have as much support if everything goes wrong. So it's a gamble. If you're wanting a Rock Solid mega tree, get a few CTB16's, a ton of LED's and make a standard or spiral mega tree. Typically not much goes wrong with those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekb Posted December 17, 2013 Author Share Posted December 17, 2013 Thanks for comments so far, I appreciate it. I am taking $ out of the question. I want to build something that I will love. Time and money is secondary. With that in mind, what would any of you do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Even though LOR makes some mean RGB items. I like to roll my own and thus not locked up with their macros. I would go with Ray Wu and get some RGB strings (cause you want to go spiral). And then a E682 controller. Then get the Nutcracker software and learn how to use it. Which makes me remember, you do not want to physically spiral the strings. This effect can be programmed into the display. But makes it harder to program other effects like a meteor shower. Thats what I would do if I had the time and the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc75067 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 we want to go rgb for 2014 and may do so with some of the display.. lots of issues with RGB stuff.. either you end up one of the lucky ones without problems or you are plagued with problems. this year one of the big problems is the 12v strings having problems and burning out if you actually use 12v.. another which seems to be a yearly deal is water and making sure you have everything sealed.. then the posts you see about pixels going out after being put out in the display and having to go remove the strand and fix or fix the section out in the yard. ccr/ccb/ccp - seem to be solid products and warrantied like nothing you will ever see. appears as though LOR takes very good care of you when you buy their products. but you pay dearly for all of that. led strings and LOR ctb16pc controllers are an "easy" way of doing things.. but, depending on how many colors you want in your show you could end up spending a ton of money.. say you want 100ct strings of red/green/white/blue led m6 to make a "super string".. if you get them on the pre-sale.. probably looking at at least $12 per string. so an easy $48 per string.. that will also eat up 4 channels of a controller.. so every 4 groups of "super strings" could cost you ~$500 depending on which controllers you get from LOR (build your own, complete or rtg). right now... we are torn on what to do but its time to start making decisions since some pre-sales have already started and more will be starting soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekb Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 Thanks everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1983ss454 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Idk, maybe I'm just a retro person, but I still like my regular mega tree 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryebred Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Despite having so many reliability issues with Ray Wu's pixels, I am happy with how the design on my RGB pixel tree turned out. The whole tree with lights, power supplies, controller, etc. was contructed at a cost of less than $1,000. If you already have a mega tree and center pole and guy wires, which I did, you can deduct that cost from the total. Next year I am going to look to an alternative to Ray Wu pixels. Right now Minleon is looking good as I have heard a number of positive reviews of them. One guy even submerged them in his pool for a couple days and they still ran fine. I would pay more for better quality but CCP's are just too much money. To replicate my current setup with CCP's it would cost $2,879. That is 7 years worth of Ray Wu pixels. Before the pixel tree I had a normal 3 color, 8 segment LED tree for a couple years which worked great and looked good but it doesn't even come close to the amazing effects you can get with an RGB pixel tree. Just know that once you delve into RGB, your programming time goes way up. I did use Nutcracker a lot and that helped but if you dont want all of your sequences looking very similar to one another then you will need to delve into manual RGB programming or Superstar programming, both of which will take time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thevikester Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I made the jump to the RGB tree this year...started as 48 strings of 55 pixels each, these were in fact Ray's pixels...I did have problems with them, as stated earlier, 12 v to 12v...turns out a PSU putting out 12V's was too much for the strings, and pop pop pop...who knew? So by opening night, it was 42 strings, I lost 10 strings, I had purchased extra based on the idea of a high end 10% failure rate...I under estimated, turns out the 2811's had some less than stellar chips in them. Turned them down to 10.1V and not an issue since...the bang for the buck is most excellent! I'm repurposing those pixel nodes for next year, and buying the flatbacked ones for next years tree...Now, in regards to nutcracker software...its really good, and they are adding features as they go...so depending on the number of songs you are going to be doing, duplication of effects may not be an issue at all...I tend to use 3 or 4 effects per song, vary the speed of the effect, change the color, etc...and you have a multitude of varying effects, and its very user friendly. I choose not to use the tree non stop, so when it is used, its an eye catcher...of the people who stop by the display year after year, they said that was by far the coolest new addition...I agree... Used the Sandevices E682's for the controllers, bought 5 of them...3 for the tree, and 1 for my arches, and 1, you know, cuz I like to have an extra...but as it would turn out, with the new firmware, I can probably scale back to 2 pretty easily for the tree next year since it doubled the universe capacity from 6 to 12...so I will have all this extra availability...what to do what to do ... BTW...Ray is replacing my strings for me...its not the most timely replacement, but he does a pretty good job of standing behind his wares. Just my 25 cents on the subject... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekb Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 Great. thanks for info. I think I have decide to definitely go RGB with the mega tree. Not to decide CCR, CCB, CCP, or some Ray Wu. I already use Nutcracker for my RGB scrolling sign, so the learning curve should be minimal."Not" should have been "Now". Please bring back the edit button soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deacon Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 I'd build a Rgb tree like Mr. & Mrs. Monkhouse did:http://www.MagicChristmas.orgColorMotion RGB mega tree, very very cool! His details and descriptions are excellent. I used his mega tree base design and its working great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now