Pumpkin patch conversion to RGB

[FireMedic4Christ]

I've already decided that I want to convert all of my pumpkins to RGB next year and have a couple of questions regarding their setup. They are a mixture of blow mold, foam, clay, and metal.
1. How many nodes does it take to make a good looking candle flicker? Is one enough or should I use two or three?
2. I have about 25 or so pumpkins. Can I daisy chain them all together so as to only use one port on my controller and still be able to control them individually? I'm thinking yes, but I don't know how.
3. I still haven't found a good way to secure the pumpkins from blowing around since they are relatively lightweight. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Brian

[nutz4lights]

Hey there,

Been so busy with lights, haven't gone through the sub-forums in weeks... I did exactly what you're discussing this year for our Halloween display.  I have pictures somewhere, but for right now, I have the following video you can check out and I will just type the details.

https://vimeo.com/144307966

Those are all foam pumpkins, around 13" to 14" tall.  They each get five ws2811 bullet-style pixels in them.  Why the bullet-style?  Because you can drill a smaller holes to slip them in than using a single ws2811 module-type thing.  Why five bullet-style lights?  Well... no good answer, but it was what looked good in testing to my eyes.  I think the video shows that it also looks plenty nice up in the air.  We have 40 of them that we acquired the last couple/few years after Halloween for pretty cheap... my wife drew all of the faces and I carved them all.

The first year we simply threw the first 15 we had on the ground and it didn't really make the impact I wanted.  After we got another 25 the second year, I decided it was time to make a pumpkin matrix.  Each vertical column is basically a 10' long 3/4" PVC pipe painted black and the pumpkins are cable tied to the pole through a hole drilled in the pumpkin and the pole.  The five individual poles are all attached to each other with another pipe assembly so that the poles don't sway around in the wind.  All of the poles and hardware cost me probably less than $15...  I have pictures, but it will probably be after New Years before I have time to get them online.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Louie