Merry Christmas & Thanks to All on this forum

[kentd]

It's Christmas morning and I felt it appropriate to give thanks to the NC/XL Staff and others for my success in having a display running this season.

The Great Christmas Light Fight 2014 started my wanting a display. I saw Matt Johnson's entry and was impressed with what he had done. Walter Monkhouse had a "how to build a megatree" on the internet so I decided to build a megatree. I have a neighbor that is an electrician and contractor so I went to him and got a 2" aluminum rigid with a collar on it to sink into the ground with concrete. A 10' and 4' coupled make up the vertical pole. This is very strong and solid and when removed the lawn mower can go right over the top of the anchor portion. The topper and connection at the top came from Christmas Light Show with strips coming down to the ring on the bottom.

I want to especially thank JonB256 for posting his Dalek Waves and Ripples for the 10 Dalek trees he made for his display. This routine gave me the idea to put Dalek Trees into my display and actually formed the basic program that has run flawlessly since Thanksgiving day when I turned on the display.

I was still poking pixel bulbs into strips in October to get the strings for the megatree done. I had painted the candy cane stripe poles for my globes earlier in the summer. I wasn't sure if I could get my matrix done but I did with a lot of poking pixels (used 100 pixel strings from Ray Wu).

I made friends with David Pitts and Jim Nealand along the way and appreciate their help and suggestions.

I bit off more than I could chew this year but what I got up has worked great.

My display consists of:
Candy Cane Globes
Mini Dalek trees
Mega Tree
42 x 50 Matrix
I am running from a Raspberry PI currently feeding two Falcon16V2  controllers (Thanks Dave)

I appreciate those on this forum that share everything from advice to sequences I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas
Thanks
Kent Davis
Centerville Utah

Next Year I want to get a Star on the Megatree and Lights on the Eves of the house, I also plan on putting together some starbursts for over in the West side of the yard, it may take next year and possibly the year following before I get my entire display put together.

[jnealand]

Kent here is the star I use.  It looks great.
http://www.christmaslightshow.com/24-RGB-Star-Flare-metal-frame-only.html

[kentd]

Jim that is the exact star I planned on using, Thanks and thank you for your link to find anchors that really work

BTW I am going to use those same anchors with a modified round plate to hold the Candy Cane Globes. I plan on a 1" hole in the center to drive the anchor through to secure to the ground and then place 4 holes that are tapped for 1/4" bolts to secure the Candy Cane to the plate thus making them immovable as this year I only had 4 spikes driven in with a hammer and they loosen and go into all kinds of crazy angles.