nutz4lights
Full time elf
Hey all... this should have been done a month ago, but work has been hectic...
I have always loved these wire/stick/twig trees and have had a dozen of them in my display for the last 4-5 years or so. The one thing that always stunk about them was the fact that, for my "red, green, and white" display, I had to have them wrapped with three strings of lights. Those three strings of lights were way too heavy for the metal wire that makes up the branch and over the years, I would get severe sagging and even branches breaking... of course, it probably doesn't help that I didn't like the original green color and decided to replace it with a new green... and didn't remove the old green because it was buried under the white and red strings!
So... the first thought that popped into my head a year ago when I heard about these fandangled RGB lights was... "how great would it be to have my twig trees with only ONE string of lights that could make any friggin' color I want!" I have been reading your site for quite some time and earlier this year, I placed an order with Ray for some of the 5V WS2811 pixels with white wire and custom ~20cm spacing. The trees are white, hence the request for white wire... and because the lights have to "go out and come back" on a branch... and drop from one branch level to another... I decided to make the spacing between pixels higher than the standard 10cm. Now, I know, that is more copper, heavier strings, etc... but I decided to take a chance.
Luckily for me, a couple Christmases ago, I picked up a bunch of new trees from Sears at 75% off (18 to be exact!) so I didn't have to reuse my old trees. The new trees are only 1.5m (5') whereas the old trees were 1.8m and 2.1m, but they will be much more exciting with the new colors! When the lights came in, I spent time learning how to use them before actually putting anything on a tree... A couple weeks back, I snagged one of the new trees and stripped it of its plain white minis. I was targeting 300 pixels originally, but as I looked at the branch lengths... I started to think that I could get by with 200 pixels. 200 pixels is a nice number because I can do six of these trees on one P12R (two outputs per tree), with each tree getting its own IP68 100W 5V power supply for the 60W required.
Here is a video that I took tonight showing the tree running in test mode on the P12R. I had snagged LSP demo a month ago and my demo license expired... I'm still trying to decide on Pro, Advanced, etc...
RGB pixel twig tree on Vimeo
Thanks for looking.
-Louie in Melbourne (Florida)
I have always loved these wire/stick/twig trees and have had a dozen of them in my display for the last 4-5 years or so. The one thing that always stunk about them was the fact that, for my "red, green, and white" display, I had to have them wrapped with three strings of lights. Those three strings of lights were way too heavy for the metal wire that makes up the branch and over the years, I would get severe sagging and even branches breaking... of course, it probably doesn't help that I didn't like the original green color and decided to replace it with a new green... and didn't remove the old green because it was buried under the white and red strings!
So... the first thought that popped into my head a year ago when I heard about these fandangled RGB lights was... "how great would it be to have my twig trees with only ONE string of lights that could make any friggin' color I want!" I have been reading your site for quite some time and earlier this year, I placed an order with Ray for some of the 5V WS2811 pixels with white wire and custom ~20cm spacing. The trees are white, hence the request for white wire... and because the lights have to "go out and come back" on a branch... and drop from one branch level to another... I decided to make the spacing between pixels higher than the standard 10cm. Now, I know, that is more copper, heavier strings, etc... but I decided to take a chance.
Luckily for me, a couple Christmases ago, I picked up a bunch of new trees from Sears at 75% off (18 to be exact!) so I didn't have to reuse my old trees. The new trees are only 1.5m (5') whereas the old trees were 1.8m and 2.1m, but they will be much more exciting with the new colors! When the lights came in, I spent time learning how to use them before actually putting anything on a tree... A couple weeks back, I snagged one of the new trees and stripped it of its plain white minis. I was targeting 300 pixels originally, but as I looked at the branch lengths... I started to think that I could get by with 200 pixels. 200 pixels is a nice number because I can do six of these trees on one P12R (two outputs per tree), with each tree getting its own IP68 100W 5V power supply for the 60W required.
Here is a video that I took tonight showing the tree running in test mode on the P12R. I had snagged LSP demo a month ago and my demo license expired... I'm still trying to decide on Pro, Advanced, etc...
RGB pixel twig tree on Vimeo
Thanks for looking.
-Louie in Melbourne (Florida)
