My display 2014

[jnealand]

If all else fails you can warm it up with a hair dryer or heat gun, but don't get it too hot or the nice curve becomes a 90 deg bend.  I learned my lesson on that one.  Maybe we should start a thread called Mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned.  That would be probably make for some fun reading.  Makes me wonder when I am going to quit doing this.  I'm pushing 73 now and the days when I'm doing setup I can tell it.

[drlucas]

No...let's not start a thread like that.

....I would have to admit then that I poured boiling water into a 3/4" pvc pipe to take the stiffness out of an arch and ended up with something between a rectangle and an arch shaped pipe. it was cut into sections and made it's way into the recycling bin.


I started this hobby way back when I was 40....it's my second year doing this. If I get to 73 and don't fall off the roof, don't fall off a ladder, don't fling solder into my eye, don't cut my hand with a saw, don't skin my arm when a drill bit slips, than a few do-overs on the arches will be something I'll be ok with....but right now things like that just drive me nuts!!!

[drlucas]

OK. Hoop  is built out of some old nodes I had. Tomorrow I'll program up the controller and if all goes well will connect this to the top of a TV antenna I have mounted. Wanted to put a star their one day but never got to building it. Only two concerns I'll have to manage. First is I am not sure I have any non-union fuses on the active hub and second is I'm not sure what my channel count up on that universe looks like as I have my roof outline and three spinners on it already. I'm in the 900 node count I think right now. Anyways. Worst case is I have a nifty prop for next season. This circle has 46 nodes in it.

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[Lights On Fifth]

Hmmmmmmmm  mistakes Ive made, that thread could become the longest and funniest thread of all time, I say let do this in the new year. currently I have 5 hula hoops just waiting to be wrapped with pixels, that is a next years project.

[Gilrock]

I like that hula hoop idea for those type of pixels.  The conduit I mentioned is for ribbon strips.  If you get the 12V ribbons that have 30/m and are 16 feet long it ends up about 5' in diameter which reminds me I left out the part that you need two pieces of conduit just over 8' to create that sized ring.

By the way last night was crazy at my house.  We have a big neighborhood event every year where they have hay rides starting from two locations and lots of games and food available.  We are close to one of the start location but the hayride only takes a short route that doesn't come our way.  This year we got excited when we heard the horses come around the corner and 3 horse drawn carriages came in by the house and looped around.  It looked like 25 to 30 people in each carriage.  Not sure why but they didn't come back down the rest of the night.  Actually there were times where the cars would have made it hard for them to turn around so if they really wanted to do it they need to use cones to block it off like they do down the rest of the starting areas.  Most people have to park at a nearby school and walk down the street to get to the hayrides which bring them right past a view of our house and then they come back.  We had so many people standing in front at one point someone came up and asked me if this was the line for the hayride.  Lots of positive comments and people saying I should win the contest.  I said I don't know they only placed me sixth last year.  The judges seem to like quantity of lights and inflatables more than appreciating the sequencing and that mine is really a show and not a display.

There is a place downtown called Winterhaven where tons of people go to see lights and they have police managing traffic.  A little girl stuck her head out the window a couple nights ago and said "forget Winterhaven this place is awesome".  I have to say "Let It Go" seems like the big hit this year.  It was cool hearing several young girls singing at the top of their lungs and dancing in the back of trucks and in the street to that song.  Wish I had gotten video of the crowd.

I gave out glow bracelets and candy canes for several hours last night.