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Mega Tree Pole keeps breaking


Richard365

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More rain with lighting and thunder.  Keeping the life perseveres by front  door.  Just wondering how much snow we would have if it was cold enough. 

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5 hours ago, Richard365 said:

More rain with lighting and thunder.  Keeping the life perseveres by front  door.  Just wondering how much snow we would have if it was cold enough. 

If you see animals in pairs then you are in deep deep do do!! 

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9 hours ago, Richard365 said:

...  Just wondering how much snow we would have if it was cold enough. 

On average, thirteen inches of snow equals one inch of rain in the US, although this ratio can vary from two inches for sleet to nearly fifty inches for very dry, powdery snow under certain conditions. per nssl.noaa.gov

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  • 2 weeks later...

24 hours of rain again. So my daughter built Noah  Ark. This site scks on trying to load pictures.

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11 minutes ago, Richard365 said:

24 hours of rain again. So my daughter built Noah  Ark. This site scks on trying to load pictures.

Join the club but we have had days of rain with only a couple days in between since Halloween. Shut my show down Friday because my MT is flooded and my mini trees which were in my driveway looked like they were in a river.

Packed 90 % of my controllers Saturday in the few hours of no rain. Looking for possible tornados later and into the New Year.

JR

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11 hours ago, Richard365 said:

24 hours of rain again. So my daughter built Noah  Ark. This site scks on trying to load pictures.

I found issues with posting pictures also.

Somethings I do

This one works each time

Post picture to Facebook or some other site and copy as link. 

These sometimes works

Send picture to your email Sometimes it asks if you want to downsize

Get the App compressor for picture

 

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another rainy weekend,  whats up. with this rain. Going to have to wait for the ground to freeze to get in the back yard.   Good news is my Mega tree is still standing, just cant take it down without swimming to it..

Edited by Richard365
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16 minutes ago, Richard365 said:

another rainy weekend,  whats up. with this rain. Going to have to wait for the ground to freeze to get in the back yard.   Good news is my Mega tree is still standing, just cant take it down without swimming to it..

Yes, my MT is the last one standing. Like you , I have a swamp. It may be up until July at which point I will add that to my 4th light show and just may decide to leave it up. Never even had as much as a puddle in my MT area, I was assessing it today to see where it could be moved, absolutely nowhere else. This year I already planned and was given an old trampoline, I will use that as my base for possible flooding in 2019. I will cut the legs to elevate the strands about 6" off the ground. 

The rain stopped early this morning and it looks like sun for 4 days in a row.

JR

Edited by dibblejr
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I use a telescopic flag pole made by Telepole (USA Company).  It’s a 3 1/2” commercial pole 25’ tall.  The 16x50 mega tree is 20’ tall.  The North Star is another 5’.  Use 2 guy wires on Star only.  Had winds up to 50mph and no problem.  Extended the pole only 20’ then Star was set on top.  

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Here's a MEGA TREE pole that will not break if you can get your hands on one. In use for 10 years.

100_1041A.jpg

Edited by EARLE W. TALLEY
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28 minutes ago, EARLE W. TALLEY said:

Here's a MEGA TREE pole that will not break if you can get your hands on one. In use for 10 years.

100_1041A.jpg

Very similar to the Rohn 25 tower section I intend to use for mine...

 

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yep, I use a rohn25 tower for both my mega tree and spiral tree. Holds up perfect to snow, ice and wind. You can climb them and mount controllers on them.

IMG_20180106_142238_zpstetlmicv.jpg

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DSC05171_zps58a79ea1.jpg

DSC05279_zpssdw6kngd.jpg

IMG_3274_zpsf7358f37.jpg

Edited by Santas Helper
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  • 3 months later...

Ok with the solid rod between my connection point where the two 10 foot section connect. The pipe did NOT break at the connector this year. First year ever it did not break. So, by  putting the solid pipe inside where they connect did the job. We had gust of wind between 50-70 MPH.  I am just taking down the tree now. So its been up for 5 months.  LOL...

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2 hours ago, Richard365 said:

Ok with the solid rod between my connection point where the two 10 foot section connect. The pipe did NOT break at the connector this year. First year ever it did not break. So, by  putting the solid pipe inside where they connect did the job. We had gust of wind between 50-70 MPH.  I am just taking down the tree now. So its been up for 5 months.  LOL...

Great when it works like it’s supposed to. 

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  • 8 months later...
On 12/2/2018 at 2:04 PM, Little_b said:

I use a single 23 foot 1-1/4" steel pipe.  I cemented an insert into the ground that it goes in with 4 guy wires coming off the top.  Pipe hangs from bike hooks in the ceiling of my garage during the off season.

where did you buy that from? I can't seem to find that length

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8 minutes ago, airborneSRT said:

where did you buy that from? I can't seem to find that length

I can get 23' here in iron city all the time, its the getting it down the interstate that is scary so I opted with a 2 section tree.

Retired the antenna mast so if anyone in Alabama or surrounds is looking I have one available. Two sections with a base 20' tall.

On another note, I also added the trampoline frame as the mt base as I mentioned above. It worked perfect. Only one power failure for the mt this season due to so much rain that the ext cord that is already suspended off the ground with spikes once again got flooded. Went out and added a 2' section of emt conduit and raised it. No further failures.

JR

Edited by dibblejr
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use 1-1/4 black iron pipe  no splices or threads at all you will never have a problem with it   i did what you did 7 years ago learned  my lesson thought it would be easier to put up and take down it came down easier ha ha

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11 hours ago, airborneSRT said:

where did you buy that from? I can't seem to find that length

Most places that are not big chain stores have it in the 23' lengths. I always thought it is a weird size. Call a HVAC or Gas appliance store. Or if you are lucky enough like me you can get it from the mfg.

JR

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23 hours ago, sysco said:

use 1-1/4 black iron pipe  no splices or threads at all you will never have a problem with it   i did what you did 7 years ago learned  my lesson thought it would be easier to put up and take down it came down easier ha ha

I use the same but use a 10ft and 5ft section put together with a pole pin.  Has survived the Nebraska winds.

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Well - mine failed this year in 60mph straight winds. My own fault  - guy wire anchors weren't all the way screwed into the ground (freakin house built on a sandstone base at 12" deep). You can seen the dirt chunks stuck to the anchors in the below pic. 1-1/4" rigid pipe. Threads cut off and used the solid steel pole-pin. 2" sleeve buried 2' deep for the pole. So I figured I really didn't even need those guy wires anyway. Boy - was I ever wrong! 

So rebuild : I still used 1-1/4" pipe as that's what fits the sleeve. Added 20 ft 1" pipe inside the 20' 1-1/4" pipe. Now double wall strong baby!  Also, took time (that I should have first off...) and dug the anchor holes 20" deep. 1/2 bag cement in each hole. Now the house will blow away - and the mega tree will still live on!

 

 

 

No photo description available.

 

 

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OUCH!

All those lights (ties and mount rods) do present a goodly wind load surface.  Maybe enclosing them (the tree strand) in a thin sleeve could reduce the surface presented load.

 

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2 hours ago, Mega Arch said:

Well - mine failed this year in 60mph straight winds. My own fault  - guy wire anchors weren't all the way screwed into the ground (freakin house built on a sandstone base at 12" deep). You can seen the dirt chunks stuck to the anchors in the below pic. 1-1/4" rigid pipe. Threads cut off and used the solid steel pole-pin. 2" sleeve buried 2' deep for the pole. So I figured I really didn't even need those guy wires anyway. Boy - was I ever wrong! 

So rebuild : I still used 1-1/4" pipe as that's what fits the sleeve. Added 20 ft 1" pipe inside the 20' 1-1/4" pipe. Now double wall strong baby!  Also, took time (that I should have first off...) and dug the anchor holes 20" deep. 1/2 bag cement in each hole. Now the house will blow away - and the mega tree will still live on!

 

 

 

No photo description available.

 

 

Daniel- Sorry that happened to you. You know it happened to me last year during take down so I replaced the tower with the winch straight up 20’ tree and it worked like a charm. I was able to add some lights that I had run out of after replacing all the broken strings.

My hook head broke in 2017 and I had a mess and guy wires cut about 1/3 of my strings.

 

Glad it didn’t hit That pretty home and more importantly you wasn’t on it.

JR

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On ‎12‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 8:20 AM, airborneSRT said:

where did you buy that from? I can't seem to find that length

I got it from a local Metal Mart Shop.  https://metalmart.biz/

Here are the anchors I use for my guy wires  https://www.lowes.com/pd/Covert-Tie-Out-Stake/999909353 

I cemented a sleeve about 2 feet in the ground that my pole fits in. It doubles as my flag pole at times during the summer.

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14 minutes ago, Little_b said:

I got it from a local Metal Mart Shop.  https://metalmart.biz/

Here are the anchors I use for my guy wires  https://www.lowes.com/pd/Covert-Tie-Out-Stake/999909353 

I cemented a sleeve about 2 feet in the ground that my pole fits in. It doubles as my flag pole at times during the summer.

I had those exact dog tie out stake rip out several years ago and our soli is solid  red clay very hard stuff. After that I use the more expensive hurricane tie downs, they are orange. With the tower that fell I had 3' rebar but it way saturated from Christmas to takedown the end of Feb. I didn't realize just how saturated since the surface was bone dry. With my pole tree I went with both, the 3' rebar and the hurricane tiedowns. No problem yet this year but no more climbing a tower for me.

All I can say is be careful with them. They are about 1/4 of the cost of the hurricane stakes but safety is worth it. Beit, I do not know what ground you have. Im just adding my .02

JR

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