What are you changing this year? Elements you are building or installing for 2023

[ryanschristmaslights]

After last year's successful thread with many of you showing off all the projects you have been up to with your own displays, it is about time for a 2023 edition, don't you agree?

As before, this thread can be a place to share what you're building, assembling, adding or changing in your 2023 displays. You might like to share a photo, write about it or do both, the choice is yours! PS we have a 'prop construction' media category set up for anyone that would like to share photos.

Although right now Australia is in the middle of winter, we are now in the second half of the year with the days getting longer and Christmas is (slowly slowly) approaching in the far distance. So who has started planning their 2023 displays?

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As for me, I have just submitted payment for an order of more GS8208 12V pixels . With these I can retire some more old single-colour dumb led strings used on certain garden shrubs (despite last year thinking to replace them with RGB dumb strings). I have also bought extras for a potential pixel star topper for the mega tree - but I can't make up my mind for whether I want it to be 92cm or 120cm wide! Maybe I'll just order both sizes of ChromaStar...

 

[bundymat]

I am expanding the matrix to 4600 pixels, 6 home made NSR trees, home made tune to matrix, and more smart receiver boxes

 

[stevelee]

I just had my lights up for the local Winter Festival. I didn't put the christmas props (stockings, north pole sign and santa riding a motorcycle). I added a showstopper spinner and snowflake, 2 EFL Spiral X trees, EFL 24Flakes and baby back flakes and EFL Radio. I also upgraded my bethlehem start to the EFL more HD one.

Not all new ones will make it to the christmas layout.

I'm working on a prop for the Bathurst 1000, that I can use multiple times for the major events we have. It may have a p5 panel setup to make it more versatile.

 

[Domestos]

I am adding 4 more DIY mini trees (I will try to do a constuction build of these) and 4 Spiral trees using the "new" seed pixels from Ray-Wu. Don't know how they will hold up in the Brissy sun, but they are quite cheap, and very easy to mount on a spiral tree frame from Bunnings. Also adding 4 Reindeer Stockings from Ink Creations.
Finally, if the budget allows, I would like to replace all the pixels in my Angel Wings. I got a dodgy batch of pixels last year, and It has been giving me more trouble than joy.

 

[Skymaster]

Just put in an order for a bunch more pixels tonight. Slow boat shipping so it'll be 6 weeks before i see them.
I've got 2 more singing globes to make a trio, a new star to even up the space where the original globe was, and 5x mini NSR trees and stars to go under my arches.

Started looking at the mounting for my solar panel matrix as well, and possible ways to do that. I have some ideas now.

 

[JacksonHo]

First year for me last year so starting from a low base with learning how it all connects together. Started with 3 mini trees, 5 arches, roof outline with a 2m wooden star my father in law built 20 years ago, 2 spinners and a small matrix.

I am going to add a few things this year if all goes to plan.
12 foot 180 degree megatree if I can find a topper, hopefully BooY finds one laying about from old stock.
At least 1 singing tree, maybe a couple of singing globes
A few of the smaller candy canes.
I am planning on adding about 2-3k pixels each year for the next few years to keep everything in a workable budget.

 

[Indigogyre]

I might have messed up with my calculations and decided to just do a large bulk purchase of 9000 pixels early in the year and have them on hand and ready to go. That purchase was the bulk of my budget for the year and might have me doubling my show in it's 3rd year. There are plans for a LOT of upgrades but we will see what can be made.

We will see what gets done or not. I have plans for both a Halloween and Christmas show so building for both at the same time.

Here are a few things made new so far:
6 - GE Poor Man Pixel Poles 200 pixel version. These are about 4" x 47" tall.


2 - GE baby Grand Illusions 900 Pixels about 32"


More to come as I complete them.

 

[Zuseleets]

We won't have as much time to set up our display as previous years so I'll be sadly removing stuff.
My whole house matrix goes this year, as it takes too long time to setup. It was all strip so it might get reused elsewhere in the display.
I'll be making my house outline permanent this year. I'm drilling holes into conduit for the roof line and gable lights.
I want to replace all the strip in my house verticals with square nodes so I can use square conduit to have all these as permanent lighting.

I'm adding stars to my mini trees, a bunch of musical notes, a unicorn, nsr candy canes and some other ideas, but I think I have enough on my plate as it stands, so the other ideas will stay as ideas.

My Mega Tree will still remain the dodgiest tree in the community as I won't have it in my budget to upgrade it to "Non Dodgy" status again this year.

I have no idea how my Coke Bottle Angel Wings and other light stuff are going in storage as I currently have a palm tree blocking the door to the shipping container it's stored in.

Said palm tree...

 

[SmartAlecLights]

I planed on upgrading the main 2 strip matrix's from 12v to 5v ones. (well build new ones)
But Council said something about the amount of traffic my show is generating in a meeting recently.
So who knows where my Christmas show will be held.

 

[bpratt]

upgrading my 5 x 2 p5 panels to a 5 x 5 p5 panels....... actually more replacing it, and keeping the 5 x 2 for another location in the front yard.

I've got pixels going up both fence lines this year to replace the dumb led's that were there. I got the pixels made in 200mm spacing due to the perspective looking up a long line, and they look like 25mm spacing !
If I ever have to replace them, I'll go with 300mm spacing and end up with the same effect.

The visible length of one of my fences is more than 100m long, so you can guess the greater the spacing, then less power injection required.

Also picked up 3 more moving heads in the Qld deal this year, so I'll have 4 x 350w MH, and the old 230w MH I put in to an outdoor enclosure last year.

 

[Johnnyboy]

Making up controller boxes. Making up 4 identical boxes, with 3 of them shown.

Power wiring complete, now just to put it in the boxes and get the controllers wired up

 

[scamper]

Finally getting around to populating some props that I bought about 5 years ago and adding a few more strands to my mega tree.
I decided this year I would give myself plenty of time to do a complete clean-up of my display including my sequences, however i am already panicking about the lack of time I have to get it all done.

 

[djgra79]

I'm upgrading my single row of gutter pixels to 6x high giving me options for scrolling text, horizontal lines and more definition overall. I have already constructed these panels and wired them up, just waiting on 3D printed clips to hook onto gutters.

I'm also adding a garage matrix, using temp fence panels and Chromamesh from ELD. Started working on the controller boxes for these, being driven by Alan's HE123.

I'm also considering buying the coro presents and a matrix arch or 2 from ELD, just cos! (This also means I'll need more pixels!)

 

[Dreamin]

This year I've got 5,000 5cm 5v seed pixels, made a new star for my tree using MarkM's method (lots of hot glue) and upgrading my tree to 24x130 pixels (65 up 65 down) with power injection at the end so it won't be much bigger but double the density. The star came out great, it's so light but a lot of work!
Also did some halloween props, made a tune to sign, and replaced all the dodgy 2022 pixels that were faulty in the EFL radio, added big candy canes, and stockings. Got a few more roof lines to add which I'll use the left over seed pixels for to test.

It's looking quite fun! Just not looking forward to tuning up 50 sequences to the new layout!

 

[JacksonHo]

This year I've got 5,000 5cm 5v seed pixels, made a new star for my tree using MarkM's method (lots of hot glue) and upgrading my tree to 24x130 pixels (65 up 65 down) with power injection at the end so it won't be much bigger but double the density. The star came out great, it's so light but a lot of work!

What do you mean by 65 up and 65 down? Are you doing 1 inch spacing instead of 2 but offsetting the pixels somehow like sticking the two runs together but offset by an inch? If that makes sense….

Just tossing up doing a mega tree with seed or bullets but there aren’t a lot of examples with seed to understand best way of doing so.