Queensland King Light Display

I put out a few lights for a halloween display (triangles, gutter, P10 panels and the mini trees with a sheet over them for ghosts). The mini trees looked more like KKK members, but a few drawn on eyes resolved that. Some of the lights are not working as they should (random ones at %100 brightness even though only running at %10, and others were colours are not happy). Still, gives me time to resolve before 1 Dec. Just on that, woke up the other morning and realised that 1 Dec is not far away. Where has the year gone?
 
I moved the command centre into position at the front of the house over the weekend. Unfortunately, it is too wide to fit into the location I had planned, but I was fortunate to find another location nearby. Cleaned up and labeled cables to make it easier to identify them. Now it is crunch time. Got a few days off planned during the week. Need to start moving everything to the front and getting it to work.

Time to get my Griswold on...
 
Got some additional items on the house over the weekend.
Set up the wreath lights

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSn5q0D2H3k


Another video with my wreath lights, stars and "wickets"

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQdAHfN-BxY


Another video with wreath, stars, gutters, and "wickets"

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAvJnFGn_0Y


I also connected the arches - video still to come. I am hoping this week to complete the spinner and check that the tree works. One issue I had was trying to connect the arches in the same line as the 24v stars. Out of the f16 I had data and -ve, into power injection, then out of the stars was -ve and data, into 12v PI. For some reason I only had a few lights come on. Overcome this by running the stars and arches on different outputs from the f16.

NEWSFLASH!! Frosty the Snowman has been spotted in the vegetable section of the local supermarket. He was seen picking his nose!
 
Got a few more additions completed yesterday - arches, garage post and spinner. Happy with the garage post - I still have another roll of nodes so might do the other post. Spinner still needs some power added to it, but at least its working now (was playing up during testing). WIll bring out the tree this weekend and try to get the spiral trees working. At this stage I am happy that I will make 1 Dec (may even get in a soft launch show during the last week of November). Still having issues with gutter line 1 and 3, and the triangles, but confident I will get them sorted.





Q: What do you call an elf who sings? A: a wrapper!
 
A big weekend just gone. Other than getting sunburnt, managed to get the big ticket items out and on display. First up was the tree. That was a battle. Luckily enough I had the basketball pole and base. A few cable ties and on it went. I originally left the backboard on when I added the tree, but after standing back and looking at it noticed it blocked a lot of the middle triangle on the roof, so off it went. What a battle that was as the bolts were rusted. But it came off.
Photo 25-11-17, 11 31 15

Photo 25-11-17, 11 31 15

Note to self for next year - fill the base up with water before adding the tree. Due to the location of the filler, its half full. Will need to get Mrs QldKing involved to help me fill up more of the base with water.

After taking the backboard off it did look a bit plain on top, so I added a star to it. Looks quite good.
Photo 26-11-17, 09 39 29

Photo 26-11-17, 09 39 29


Next was getting the spinner on to the roof. Very happy with how that looks. It's just the offcuts from the tree aluminum, so each arm (12 in total) is around 900mm long (you can see it on the roof in the photo with the star on the tree).

Here are the videos from the testing - Here is a short video with Cant stop the feeling from @logandc99

And another with a sequence that I created


I thought brightness on the tree was right down - but will check it again to make sure.

Day off Wednesday so will be resolving some power issues that I have noticed.
 
UPDATE: The tree was running at %30 in the f16V3. Dropped that back to %10 and I will also drop back the brightness in xLights.
 
Had yesterday (29/11/17) off from work to get things done. And it... rained ALL day. Got to the stage of starting to order an ark. Was really nervous about how weatherproof the new items are that went out on the weekend. Managed to get a lot of ground stuff completed in the dry (tidying wires, getting the spiral trees completed) and added some static frame elements to my DMX (Thanks to @AAH for a great board, and @Ellis for the assistance in setup :thumbsup:). I am considering about bolting the control centre to the wall. Need to plan that on a day Mrs QldKing is not home:cautious:. Started uploading sequences to the Pi and connected speakers. Also - finally got the triangles on the roof working. Think the data out side is wired differently to the data in side, which is why they were not working. Work around - run each triangle to its own output on the F16V3. Look into it more for next year. I also dropped the brightness on the Mega Tree to %10 and dropped it in xLights as well - no more tanning. Just got to add my coro mini tree, tidy up wires and add sequences to the Pi. Oh, and roll out the P10. Good to go :)

Oh, and after the rain, everything worked - relieved. A few power injection issues with the spinner and the arches, but that should take a few hours to resolve.You can see the Santa, Sleigh and two reindeer at the 15 second mark in the video, and the Merry Christmas sign at the 33 second mark. Next year will change them to LED to stand out more.
 
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