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HOW CAN YOU MAKE A TREE LOOK LIKE IT IS SPINNING AROUND ANY IDEAS HOW MANY CHANNELS WOULD YOU HAVE TO USE ECT. ANYONE HAVE ANY SEQUENCES FOR THIS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THANK YOU BLAIR

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sysco wrote:

HOW CAN YOU MAKE A TREE LOOK LIKE IT IS SPINNING AROUND ANY IDEAS HOW MANY CHANNELS WOULD YOU HAVE TO USE ECT. ANYONE HAVE ANY SEQUENCES FOR THIS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THANK YOU BLAIR

well there are many ways to do this you could simply have all of your channels say 32 of them on their own channel or if you wanted you could have 32 strands of lights controlled by only 16 channels the downside to that setup is that you will have a minimum of two channels on at once versus the first method which allows you to only light one channel at a time when you go to program the lights you would have to lay each channel out on a grid lets use the first example shall we you would have 32 channels in your sequence to make it spin around you would simply light channels 1 and 17 for a predetermined amount of time then you would light channels 2 and 18 for that same time do this for all of the channels and you get a spinning effect
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Don wrote:

sysco wrote:
HOW CAN YOU MAKE A TREE LOOK LIKE IT IS SPINNING AROUND ANY IDEAS HOW MANY CHANNELS WOULD YOU HAVE TO USE ECT. ANYONE HAVE ANY SEQUENCES FOR THIS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THANK YOU BLAIR

well there are many ways to do this you could simply have all of your channels say 32 of them on their own channel or if you wanted you could have 32 strands of lights controlled by only 16 channels the downside to that setup is that you will have a minimum of two channels on at once versus the first method which allows you to only light one channel at a time when you go to program the lights you would have to lay each channel out on a grid lets use the first example shall we you would have 32 channels in your sequence to make it spin around you would simply light channels 1 and 17 for a predetermined amount of time then you would light channels 2 and 18 for that same time do this for all of the channels and you get a spinning effect

Blair, on the sequencing and as Don stated, think of the layout as stair steps going down or up (depending on which way you want the spin). Lets say channel one has the first block, channel two has the second block and so on to channel 16 (if using a 32 channel controller), Then start over again on channel 17. Of course depending on how long you want to the circular motion to go, you may have to include 2 channels at the same time (down to channel 16) to get a faster spin.

PM me and I'll send you a short sequence of a spin sequence if you need further help.

hope this helps,

Tom
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I have a big tree in my front yard that I’ve been spinning for over 20 years. I used an old IBM PC and LPT1. For technical reasons (that I won’t get into now), I was limited to 8 channels. I originally got the idea from sets of functions lights that I had. They produced a chasing effect on only 4 channels. It’s simple and crude but produces a very good effect. This year I used 32 sets. A set of lights went up one side of the tree and down the opposite side. I numbered the sets 11,12,13,14, 21,22 23 24, 31,32,33,34 etc. Every set whose number ended in one, got plugged into relay 1 (channel 1), ending in 2 got plugged into relay 2, etc. I then sequenced 1 2 3 4 for a while, then would reverse it to
4 3 2 1. Also the thing I really like is to turn all circuits on, then turn OFF 1 2 3 4,,,(when a channel is turned off, the previos one is turned back on so 3 channels are always on ,,makes a real nice effect. The next year I built an identical board for LPT2, had 16 channels and thought I was flying high. Over time I switched to digital I/O and got up to 96 channels but still use the same scheme (4 channels) for the big natural Christmas tree in the front yard.

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One trick that I use to make a very cool spinning effect is to have each channel fade over a few events. For example, if my events are every 1/10 second, the channels will "fire" sequentially at each event and then fade for about six events (fade over 6/10 of a second.... 3/5ths for you purists.) This makes it look like it is really spinning rather than just one strand turning on and then off when the next strand turns on.

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I was just starting to program for my mega tree and was trying to decide how I wanted to accomplish it. I like that idea of fading them out. I'll try to incorporate that. Thanks Marty.

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