It depends how organised you are :) If you know what your props are going to be and you can afford the time for custom strings to be made and shipped then I think it's a great option... everything is done for you, you just push and go... if there's an issue you can more easily claim warranty...
it certainly makes life easier... buy strings with the appropriate pigtails already attached (even more so if you buy custom count strings appropriate for your individual props). I use RayWu pigtails for 5V, x-Connect for 12V so I can't mix them accidently. Saves a lot of hassle and not needing...
Wow your house is gorgeous @slw2206 and what an amazing canvas and space you have to work with! I'm envious!
I love @merryoncherry's ideas. Depending on where you want to take your show, one thing you could play with as a variation of merry's photo is to move the singing trees into the centre...
Hi Mark,
They are Boscoyo ChromaGlow Presents (eg https://boscoyostudio.com/products/chromaglow-presents-large). I bought these from ELD, but obviously that is not an option now.
cheers,
Mike
Yes, agreed. I do not apply much tension, as I like the look of the tree being slightly "soft", so that is definitely a consideration that needs to be taken into account.
Importantly, as @merryoncherry points out, there are several options these days for pixels and things in the hobby have...
I'm going to throw another option at you.... since you said you want to build it once :)
Bullets are nice, and pretty reliable and all... and heavy and take up a lot of space...
My first tree was 24 strands x 75 square nodes at 2" spacing in boscoyo strip. Yeah it looked ok, it was pretty...
Glad I was able to inspire you @ryanschristmaslights ! The gingerbread people from Ink Creations do look fantastic, and they are a real hit with the kids. So much so I added a DIY gingerbread house this year, with 3D printed mini-props, panels in the windows and door cutout, and strip on the...
A few things I would have done if we were building again:
might be too late for this one, but 2-3 nice fat conduits from the garage (where my central controllers, rPi, etc live) out into the front yard to take power/ethernet out to controllers/data cables out to differential receivers/3 core...
I'm using UniFi U6-Mesh AP's all connected via ethernet and powered by PoE. I have 3 - one upstairs, one downstairs and one in the garage. Probably way overkill but I was previously getting some dead spots in the far corners of the house with the old AP/extenders. Handover between them seems...
Do 50mm and double it over :) This image is not tensioned, as you can see, but 42 strands, 192 pixels per strand at 25mm spacing :) (50mm spaced strings doubled over)
By default the Baldrick 8 uses DHCP, and gets an IP address from your internet router (for most people's home networks). It's *possible* that the second Baldrick was given the same IP as the first if the first has been off the network, but still powered up. The first may still be hanging on to...