DIY Coro Form & LED Questions (Gilbert Eng & General)

[Yodlei]

I'm a newbie & wanted to start making some forms myself for practice. Found some plain white CORO signs at Menard's & was going to try making some hearts, eggs, clovers for the upcoming holidays for use with LED & Incandescent string lights. Gilbert Engineering (& Holiday Coro as well) have some very cute pre-painted forms but some of the larger ones are very expensive. When I look under the mini-light section on Gilbert's site, some descriptions say "for use with mini lights or 12mm bullet pixels". Would the holes be the same size? Bullets look a lot fatter than LEDs.

For 2nd question, do Led/Incand lights fit tight in these holes & can lights be removed & replaced somewhat often so I don't have to buy duplicates of the same color to use for different holidays? Phrased another way, will attaching & removing lights degrade the stability of the holes (like when removing from Valentine form to use in a Christmas form)?

3rd question..only saw mention of 1 site with small count strings (10, 20, etc.) but found those smaller counts were normally only white & couldn't be used outside & HLE shows only as small as 35. Anyone know where can buy quality/outdoor smaller strings in colors?

4th question..anyone know where to buy incandescent replacement bulbs in weird colors (as in those window silhouettes)? re: pastel, frosted, etc.

PS...I'll add a tip I'm trying; found a heart window light I had that doesn't work fits just inside the perimeter of the smaller Coro sheet I bought & traced it onto the Coro. The notches that hold each light appear to be spaced out evenly so could place dots where the lights would poke through.

Surprised there isn't more DIY form info out there. DIY brings up more board & controller info than forms.

Ooops, 5th question..haven't even delved into the software yet but I love editing videos & music for use with window projection using Windows Movie Maker which came to me pretty easily. Would programming these light shows be similar?

THX!

 

[Mr. P]

1. Incan/led lights are smaller then the 12mm pixels so they are not interchangeable.

2. If you keep pulling the lights in and out the holes will wear out and enlarge to the point where the lights will fit loosely.

3. Holiday Light Express has good sealed, full wave lights, check them out.   https://www.holiday-light-express.com/

4. No idea, I don't use incans anymore.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Mr. P

[Brian Mitchell]

There is a great coro how to at www.christmasutah.com 

[Yodlei]

4 hours ago, Mr. P said:

1. Incan/led lights are smaller then the 12mm pixels so they are not interchangeable.

2. If you keep pulling the lights in and out the holes will wear out and enlarge to the point where the lights will fit loosely.

3. Holiday Light Express has good sealed, full wave lights, check them out.   https://www.holiday-light-express.com/

4. No idea, I don't use incans anymore.

Thx. 1 & 2..that's what I thought. Making my list for HLE but don't have the small counts under 35.

 

4 hours ago, Brian Mitchell said:

There is a great coro how to at www.christmasutah.com 

Thx...will check that out tomorrow.

[k6ccc]

17 hours ago, Yodlei said:

Phrased another way, will attaching & removing lights degrade the stability of the holes (like when removing from Valentine form to use in a Christmas form)?

You do not want to regularly pull and replace the lights.  First of all, it's a pain in the ass to do, and second as Mr. P said, it will degrade the holes over time.

As for really short strings, what most of us do is buy the next string size larger than the number that you need and only use the required number.  The remainder just coil up behind the coro.  Some people put them in black plastic bags so the lights are not seen.  That depends on visibility - I don't bag mine.

 

[TheSignGuy]

I agree with k6ccc I have the extra bulbs just coiled on the back of the coro. I did wrap the extra bulbs with electrical tape but no one see's the back anyway, that is also good if you need a spare bulb. Worked great for the last 7 years and much easier to swap out a string instead of finding the exact number of bulbs the trees need.

[Little_b]

If you need to blackout a certain amount of lights to make shorter strings, I use to use these when I did free hand pictures on my roof-

https://thechristmaslightemporium.com/products/multi-use-blackout-caps-pack-of-100?variant=36241361100

Just be careful when pulling them back off.  Sometime they pull the lens off as well.

[Yodlei]

Sorry for the delay & thanks!!! I read about the coiling & black out caps but when you only go over by 1 or 2 bulbs (which appears to happen a lot with the Gilbert Engineering forms), 35 is overkill to hide, especially if you have multiple different colors that are only over by a bulb or 2. Wish HLE would make smaller sets but I guess it is not economical for them. White wire sets less than 70 bulbs would also help for additional holidays.

[Yodlei]

BTW, on the ChristmasUtah site, their PDFs must be too old. My computer won't let me see them...keeps failing.

[TheDucks]

9 minutes ago, Yodlei said:

BTW, on the ChristmasUtah site, their PDFs must be too old. My computer won't let me see them...keeps failing.

What are you trying to use for PDF? W10 had no probs opening that file

[Yodlei]

55 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

What are you trying to use for PDF? W10 had no probs opening that file

Tried both the recommended Adobe & also Firefox.

[TheDucks]

11 minutes ago, Yodlei said:

Tried both the recommended Adobe & also Firefox.

Firefox did the download, but W10 opened the file that was in the download folder. Maybe your A/V is messing with you.

[Jimehc]

https://aachristmas.com/pages/craft-lights

[Yodlei]

56 minutes ago, Jimehc said:

https://aachristmas.com/pages/craft-lights

Was already on that site & those aren't LEDs that can be used along with those from Holiday Light Express without using a separate channel unless there's something I'm missing. Saw the LED Craft lights page but those aren't the right type for coro but thanks!!

[Jimehc]

LED and Incandescent have nothing to with being on same channel - it is more the fact of the illumination factor between the two

[k6ccc]

They do have M5 LEDs (which would be fine for the Holiday Coro), but they are 50 and 100 count strings.  And they are not sealed bulbs.  Better off with the HLE.

 

[Yodlei]

3 hours ago, Jimehc said:

LED and Incandescent have nothing to with being on same channel - it is more the fact of the illumination factor between the two

Think you misunderstood me. I know the difference between the 2 but you can't piggy back the 2 & won't be the same color. My cause to mention was if a coro item required 102 lights, adding 30 to the 100 is overkill for just 2 lights. I see this often on the pre-made coro forms. If my example was for 128 lights, then a 100 & a 30 together is reasonable. Wish there were more 10 or 15 count sets & also smaller sets (35 & 50) on the white wire. Guess many don't decorate for other holidays. Don't want green wire bulbs on a Valentine or Easter display where white forms would be used.

[Yodlei]

3 hours ago, k6ccc said:

They do have M5 LEDs (which would be fine for the Holiday Coro), but they are 50 and 100 count strings.  And they are not sealed bulbs.  Better off with the HLE.

 

Agree! Was making my list for HLE & since it was advised not to remove strings from coro forms, I was already over $500. Geez! Wanted to do the dancing skeleton but God it takes a lot of lights. Want to get stuff ordered while their pre-sale is still going on. Going to place 2 orders so I can get as much of the left-overs as soon as possible so I can try to do a little something for St. Pat's & the 4th & a head start on my singing faces for Halloween. Some colors aren't available & don't want to wait for it all til Sept. Got excited to see they added white wire but then disappointed it was only the bigger count strings. Needed some 35's & 50's for Easter.

[Jimehc]

A string of fifty M6 mini lights is about $9 and a string of 50 Pixels is about $14 - but with Pixels you can change the color of the bulbs to suit the season

The wire color should not matter as it is usually on the Back Side of the Prop anyway

A Pixie Controller can be had for about the same price as an AC Controller...

So worth, at least, a consideration... After pricing out an Incandescent Display last year - I opted mostly for Pixels...

Currently look to retire my Incandescent Singing Face(s) and go all Pixels this year..

Edited February 15, 2022 by Jimehc

[Mr. P]

6 hours ago, Yodlei said:

Think you misunderstood me. I know the difference between the 2 but you can't piggy back the 2 & won't be the same color. My cause to mention was if a coro item required 102 lights, adding 30 to the 100 is overkill for just 2 lights. I see this often on the pre-made coro forms. If my example was for 128 lights, then a 100 & a 30 together is reasonable. Wish there were more 10 or 15 count sets & also smaller sets (35 & 50) on the white wire. Guess many don't decorate for other holidays. Don't want green wire bulbs on a Valentine or Easter display where white forms would be used.

If you need 102 lights then just use a 70 count string and a 35 count string  or three 35 count strings then you have 105. HLE does have 35 and 70 count strings, you just need to plan everything out before you order. You should be able to get within 10 lights of your goal.

[k6ccc]

7 hours ago, Yodlei said:

My cause to mention was if a coro item required 102 lights, adding 30 to the 100 is overkill for just 2 lights.

True, but three strings of 35 totals 105 - so only 3 extra lights.

Mr. P beat me to it...

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by k6ccc

[k6ccc]

1 hour ago, Jimehc said:

A string of fifty M6 mini lights is about $9 and a string of 50 Pixels is about $14 - but with Pixels you can change the color of the bulbs to suit the season

However - and this is my opinion - things like singing faces look so much better with mini light strings rather than pixels.  This is because the mini lights are so much smaller than pixels so pixels need to be placed farther apart.  For example with the Holiday Coro faces, the tree outline is 200 lights.  By comparison, on the four LOR pixel based trees, there are no more than 200 pixels for the entire tree and face (some less).  I have seen many examples of both, and the smaller number of light sources of pixels just does not look as good.  Again, my opinion

 

[Yodlei]

On 2/15/2022 at 7:10 AM, Mr. P said:

If you need 102 lights then just use a 70 count string and a 35 count string  or three 35 count strings then you have 105. HLE does have 35 and 70 count strings, you just need to plan everything out before you order. You should be able to get within 10 lights of your goal.

Sorry for the delay...wish I could be on more often. It was late when I replied & was just using a generalization as my example. I did end up with using the 70/35 option & lights were here within 2 days of ordering. Thx!

Jimech....I have many existing lights & really like my LEDs so not going huge with pixels but there are some needs/wants that will require them in the future. Just getting my feet wet.

[Yodlei]

On 2/15/2022 at 8:39 AM, k6ccc said:

However - and this is my opinion - things like singing faces look so much better with mini light strings rather than pixels.  This is because the mini lights are so much smaller than pixels so pixels need to be placed farther apart.  For example with the Holiday Coro faces, the tree outline is 200 lights.  By comparison, on the four LOR pixel based trees, there are no more than 200 pixels for the entire tree and face (some less).  I have seen many examples of both, and the smaller number of light sources of pixels just does not look as good.  Again, my opinion

 

Ditto thanks for the count reply.

I totally agree with you. I looked at several sites & really like the HC mini light forms for the singing trees & monsters better. Even the 23x23 singing tree faces look better than the 4x4 foot ones. Didn't like the LOR faces as much.

Between HC, Boscoyo & Gilbert, Gilbert has more than I like but depends on the form. Like the Bat a lot but their Flying Bat looks robotic. Same with their Spooky Tree...the one with the highest count of lights has that zig-zag mouth & don't like it. The video of the tree with only 3 mouth placements that is talking looks much better. Really want to make it myself but going to try some medium forms first. Gilbert's smaller forms are more reasonably priced..almost the same as a coro sheet so I'll buy them & really like some of the Day-Coro. Was too late for the Valentine Hearts this year.

[Yodlei]

More ?'s related to the title but somewhat different except for the 1st one below that no one answered...

Haven't even delved into the software yet but I love editing videos & music for use with window projection using Windows Movie Maker which came to me pretty easily. Would programming these light shows be similar?

New ?s...

Does the Coro-Claw work well or is there something better? Appears to work well in videos as far as reducing sheet size & straight lines but what about curves? For anyone that bought colored coro, what's the best place/site for that (non-Amazon & US company)? I found a few places while searching but many appear to be wholesale or only white. Home Depot carries white but appears black is only available in large sizes & larger quantity. Anybody hear of or buy from these sites?

https://www.regionalsupply.com/CatSearch/152/corrugated-sheets

https://www.boxforless.com/single-pieces-corrugated-plastic-sheets/

Also saw different manufacturers of coro...any that I should avoid?

Also saw the makers of Coro-Claw have Coro-Pins. Anyone use them? Thinking that might be what I need to hold the branches of my proposed DIY Gilbert Spooky Tree to the body (with additional support, of course).

Lastly & again a duplicate ? only answered by 1 person...does anyone know where to buy unusual colored/pastel/frosted mini replacement bulbs? I hate throwing away good working light strings just because they only give you 2 bulbs & need more.

Thanks much!