Full LED Strip PVC Support

[wkm001]

I'm building my first mega tree and want to give a little more support to my LED strips. A 3/4" by 10' piece of schedule 40 PVC conduit doesn't flop around. But 17' sure does. Has anyone tried drilling a hole every foot or two and filling it with expandable / insulating foam? Does it offer more support?

[pgchristmas]

I havent tried to reinforce the 3/4" with foam, but i am using 1/2" electrical tubing (EMT), and it works great. I inserted a full stick (10'), and then cut and inserted 72" pieces, for a total of 16' per 3/4" PVC pipe. 

 

the 1/2" EMT works great

[k6ccc]

PVC would likely be too weak for that length.  You might want to take a look at what I did on my pixel tree.  The strips are only about 12 feet long but they are held under tension.  Take a look at my webpage for the tree at:

http://newburghlights.org/pixel_tree.html

 

Obviously I'm doing something different than you are, but it might you some ideas.

[BMurray]

Funny story...I actually stole. ....I mean "borrowed" the idea for the superstrut from you Mr k6ccc. I was looking to do my first LED (CCR) strip tree and didn't know what to do or where to start and explored MANY options and then settled on your idea. I actually used 1/2" EMT as well but it was too dang heavy then tried attaching them to pixnode strips but did not like how that turned out. Soooo out went that and settled on 1/2 rope tensioned to the top and bottom with a few modifications to the support. But 90% your idea. Gotta give you a big shout out...I'll have to attach a picture to show it off..

[wkm001]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[tjflory]

Foam wont help.

 

Any way you can achieve stiffness thru tension? (use the tubing but put it under tension top/bottom?

 

 

T

[k6ccc]

That's what I'm doing  Works quite well.  See my link in post #3.

[wkm001]

Here is my plan, let me know what you think. The main support will be 2" x 2" square metal tubing (already purchased). I'm going to cut the square tubing into a 14' piece and a 6' piece. Each piece will have a plate welded on so I can bolt it back together. 2" x 2" square tubing that is 3/16" thick is suppose to be 1.6 lbs per foot. Making everything manageable, in theory. I will have four bolt on horizontal supports on left and right side of the tree for the PVC pipe / light strip.

 

To better support the PVC I think I will add a 10' piece of conduit to the middle of the 17' section. That only leaves 3.5' on each end that isn't supported by conduit. I'm also going to use some self tapping sheet metal screws to secure the metal conduit to the inside of the PVC. How does that sound?

 

On the bottom horizontal angle iron support I'll use a nut/bolt/washers to secure the PVC. On the second and third horizontal support I'll use a self tapping screw to secure the PVC/conduit to the support. The top fastener will likely be a zip tie.

 

I will drill three holes in the connecting plate just in case I need to use guy wires.