Dave_Szoka
Full time elf
These are know as Truecon.
They are the weather proof version of powercon
I brought these china-con ( pun on words) so far they have been great
also got these RJ45 connectors form the same supplier
2023 Journey - First display for JohnnyBoy
They are the weather proof version of powercon
I brought these china-con ( pun on words) so far they have been great
also got these RJ45 connectors form the same supplier
- Thread starter
- #62
Arches / Layout / 3D Printing
I haven’t been posting as much lately has I’ve been working on a bunch of things, but nothings really finished. I seem to be jumping around quite a bit, a bit here, and a bit there. It’s getting close to crunch time and still so much to do. I think I will need to take a few days off in advance of December to finish off a few things. I’ve made some good progress
Arches
I have been holding off on building the arches for a number of reasons.
The arches aren’t perfect but once mounted to the coro you can’t tell. Once the bottom cross brace is glued in place they are incredibly strong. Planning on a few bits of rebar in the ground to fix in place.
Layout Updates
After the arches were finished I noticed they were big……like really big. So big that it looks like they would block out the mini trees and canes I planned to have positioned behind them. After a post on the AusChristmasLighting Facebook page I got some really good suggestions and made some changes that will hopefully create some dynamic movement across the house and enable all elements to been seen fully. Using my little helper I positioned the arch and ginger bread man in place to see how it would like. I considered making some single width pixel arches for the front but as I feel I have so much left to do, I decided to leave this to next year if I really want to do it. The new Option 2 layout is a winner and I quite like the idea of such big props on the roof. Bridging one of the arches up onto the roof to check the positioning is next, and then to finalise the mounting.
3D printing
I didn’t think I would get into another hobby this year, but I feel the 3D printing part is more an extension of Christmas lights, right? Maybe? Ish? Ok totally new hobby, but still super cool. I knew I didn’t need to do 3D printing but there is so many good things that can be enhanced by 3D printing that it was just a matter of time before I caved. Entre the Bambu Labs P1S with AMS. It’s a beast and it really lived up to the expectation of plug and play. Set it up and printed some test brackets and worked perfectly. These are just samples in the included PLA filament so I could get a feel for it, and see how the finished product would snap onto conduits etc. Really impressed with the strength and look of the prints, exceeded my expectations dramatically. I’ve ordered a bunch of PETG (stronger and UV resistant) and took delivery a few days ago! Lots of printing in my future I am hoping.
Test prints really helped out with sizing and managed to find a few produces that would work for 20mm PVC pressure pipe (fits 3/4” US Sizing), and 25mm electrical conduit (fits 25mm metric sizing). As I have a bit of both in my display, finding the sizing that worked was very useful. I would also highly recommend SFL designs, they have every 3D printed lighting related thing out there. They sell both the 3D files and 3d printed stuff as well for the US folk https://sfl-designs.com/?store-page=3-4-PVC-STL-Files-c132478625
(SFL also have an option to download the 3d files for free to trial to see if they work for you. Very generous to have this option, and I have now purchased the files to thank their business. Support where you can
I also did a little trial on a small section of my icicles I plan to mount on the gutters. Works a treat!
After the test prints in the PLA, it was onto the white PETG filament for the main event. Did a single clip as a trial and then loaded up as many as I could fit on the plate and woke up in the morning to 23 glorious clips, was about 9hours total print time. They didn’t print as perfectly as the PLA but I’m still learning the process for custom filaments, and it seems I need to dry my filament, even right out of the vacuum sealed bags. Who Knew! New hobby indeed. So far, I’ve done the mass print twice and now should have enough to finish most of the props. Gutter clips are next on the mass printing list to start tonight hopefully (after drying the filament in the oven for 3hours that is….the oven comes up quite a bit recently)
Painting zip ties.
I’ve done a bunch of reading online about zip ties and found that the black zip ties perform much better in the sun/UV than the white/clear zip ties that I had planned to use. This was a little concerning to me as I currently use about 200 zip ties out the back of my house to fix cat run mesh inn place along the side fence line. It concerning as I typically need to replace about 50ish cable ties every 12month due to them becoming brittle and just breaking off, our cat has got loose a few times due to being a little lax with upkeep. With this in mind, I didn’t want to have even worse performance with the white cable ties so I investigated paining the back side to offer a little more protection.
The less said about this the better.
Paint looked great, but as soon as I used the zip tie, the paint flexed and pulled right off. So I now have a bunch of half painted zip ties that flake paint every time I touch it. Learn from me woops!
Will just be using black/white cable ties and replace as needed. Given they are only in the sun for a month or two a year it shouldn’t be that bad I hope. What is everyone experience with white/clear cable ties? How long do they last for you?
Whats Next
I should be able to give another update real soon as I’ve been working on a bunch of things that are getting close to being able to share
I haven’t been posting as much lately has I’ve been working on a bunch of things, but nothings really finished. I seem to be jumping around quite a bit, a bit here, and a bit there. It’s getting close to crunch time and still so much to do. I think I will need to take a few days off in advance of December to finish off a few things. I’ve made some good progress
Arches
I have been holding off on building the arches for a number of reasons.
- I didn’t have any conduit and
- I didn’t want to lean how to bend the conduit. As it turns out, both weren’t really a problem other than time and money (isn’t everything!)
- Use a heat gun, gradually going back and forth over a section of pipe about 500-800mm in length until it gets soft and bend into desired shape. Then hold it in place until it cools and goes hard again
- Heat up some sand in the oven (have a understanding spouse is a prerequisite) to about 150deg then pour heated sand into pvc pipe, wait a few minutes, tip out the sand and bend to desired shape.
The arches aren’t perfect but once mounted to the coro you can’t tell. Once the bottom cross brace is glued in place they are incredibly strong. Planning on a few bits of rebar in the ground to fix in place.
Layout Updates
After the arches were finished I noticed they were big……like really big. So big that it looks like they would block out the mini trees and canes I planned to have positioned behind them. After a post on the AusChristmasLighting Facebook page I got some really good suggestions and made some changes that will hopefully create some dynamic movement across the house and enable all elements to been seen fully. Using my little helper I positioned the arch and ginger bread man in place to see how it would like. I considered making some single width pixel arches for the front but as I feel I have so much left to do, I decided to leave this to next year if I really want to do it. The new Option 2 layout is a winner and I quite like the idea of such big props on the roof. Bridging one of the arches up onto the roof to check the positioning is next, and then to finalise the mounting.
3D printing
I didn’t think I would get into another hobby this year, but I feel the 3D printing part is more an extension of Christmas lights, right? Maybe? Ish? Ok totally new hobby, but still super cool. I knew I didn’t need to do 3D printing but there is so many good things that can be enhanced by 3D printing that it was just a matter of time before I caved. Entre the Bambu Labs P1S with AMS. It’s a beast and it really lived up to the expectation of plug and play. Set it up and printed some test brackets and worked perfectly. These are just samples in the included PLA filament so I could get a feel for it, and see how the finished product would snap onto conduits etc. Really impressed with the strength and look of the prints, exceeded my expectations dramatically. I’ve ordered a bunch of PETG (stronger and UV resistant) and took delivery a few days ago! Lots of printing in my future I am hoping.
Test prints really helped out with sizing and managed to find a few produces that would work for 20mm PVC pressure pipe (fits 3/4” US Sizing), and 25mm electrical conduit (fits 25mm metric sizing). As I have a bit of both in my display, finding the sizing that worked was very useful. I would also highly recommend SFL designs, they have every 3D printed lighting related thing out there. They sell both the 3D files and 3d printed stuff as well for the US folk https://sfl-designs.com/?store-page=3-4-PVC-STL-Files-c132478625
(SFL also have an option to download the 3d files for free to trial to see if they work for you. Very generous to have this option, and I have now purchased the files to thank their business. Support where you can
I also did a little trial on a small section of my icicles I plan to mount on the gutters. Works a treat!
After the test prints in the PLA, it was onto the white PETG filament for the main event. Did a single clip as a trial and then loaded up as many as I could fit on the plate and woke up in the morning to 23 glorious clips, was about 9hours total print time. They didn’t print as perfectly as the PLA but I’m still learning the process for custom filaments, and it seems I need to dry my filament, even right out of the vacuum sealed bags. Who Knew! New hobby indeed. So far, I’ve done the mass print twice and now should have enough to finish most of the props. Gutter clips are next on the mass printing list to start tonight hopefully (after drying the filament in the oven for 3hours that is….the oven comes up quite a bit recently)
Painting zip ties.
I’ve done a bunch of reading online about zip ties and found that the black zip ties perform much better in the sun/UV than the white/clear zip ties that I had planned to use. This was a little concerning to me as I currently use about 200 zip ties out the back of my house to fix cat run mesh inn place along the side fence line. It concerning as I typically need to replace about 50ish cable ties every 12month due to them becoming brittle and just breaking off, our cat has got loose a few times due to being a little lax with upkeep. With this in mind, I didn’t want to have even worse performance with the white cable ties so I investigated paining the back side to offer a little more protection.
The less said about this the better.
Paint looked great, but as soon as I used the zip tie, the paint flexed and pulled right off. So I now have a bunch of half painted zip ties that flake paint every time I touch it. Learn from me woops!
Will just be using black/white cable ties and replace as needed. Given they are only in the sun for a month or two a year it shouldn’t be that bad I hope. What is everyone experience with white/clear cable ties? How long do they last for you?
Whats Next
I should be able to give another update real soon as I’ve been working on a bunch of things that are getting close to being able to share
- Roof brackets / fixings
- Flake mounting frames
- Tune to sign modification / xLightings submodels
- Finishing pushing pixels for 2023!
- Mega Tree (including a full ASAP Aussie appropriate design! Looking forward to sharing that write up)
- House networking and wiring it up
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2021
- Messages
- 427
Hi Johnnyboy,3D printing
I didn’t think I would get into another hobby this year, but I feel the 3D printing part is more an extension of Christmas lights, right? Maybe? Ish? Ok totally new hobby, but still super cool. I knew I didn’t need to do 3D printing but there is so many good things that can be enhanced by 3D printing that it was just a matter of time before I caved. Entre the Bambu Labs P1S with AMS. It’s a beast and it really lived up to the expectation of plug and play. Set it up and printed some test brackets and worked perfectly. These are just samples in the included PLA filament so I could get a feel for it, and see how the finished product would snap onto conduits etc. Really impressed with the strength and look of the prints, exceeded my expectations dramatically. I’ve ordered a bunch of PETG (stronger and UV resistant) and took delivery a few days ago! Lots of printing in my future I am hoping.
Test prints really helped out with sizing and managed to find a few produces that would work for 20mm PVC pressure pipe (fits 3/4” US Sizing), and 25mm electrical conduit (fits 25mm metric sizing). As I have a bit of both in my display, finding the sizing that worked was very useful. I would also highly recommend SFL designs, they have every 3D printed lighting related thing out there. They sell both the 3D files and 3d printed stuff as well for the US folk https://sfl-designs.com/?store-page=3-4-PVC-STL-Files-c132478625
(SFL also have an option to download the 3d files for free to trial to see if they work for you. Very generous to have this option, and I have now purchased the files to thank their business. Support where you can
I also did a little trial on a small section of my icicles I plan to mount on the gutters. Works a treat!
After the test prints in the PLA, it was onto the white PETG filament for the main event. Did a single clip as a trial and then loaded up as many as I could fit on the plate and woke up in the morning to 23 glorious clips, was about 9hours total print time. They didn’t print as perfectly as the PLA but I’m still learning the process for custom filaments, and it seems I need to dry my filament, even right out of the vacuum sealed bags. Who Knew! New hobby indeed. So far, I’ve done the mass print twice and now should have enough to finish most of the props. Gutter clips are next on the mass printing list to start tonight hopefully (after drying the filament in the oven for 3hours that is….the oven comes up quite a bit recently)
Whats Next
I should be able to give another update real soon as I’ve been working on a bunch of things that are getting close to being able to share
- Roof brackets / fixings
- Flake mounting frames
- Tune to sign modification / xLightings submodels
- Finishing pushing pixels for 2023!
- Mega Tree (including a full ASAP Aussie appropriate design! Looking forward to sharing that write up)
- House networking and wiring it up
I can attest to using a bunch of the different SFL designs last year for hanging a lot of my house elements. My greatest advice would be to use natural PETG filament as it is clear-ish. I made the mistake last year of using black and you can really see them standing out on my pale colored house. I left most of the brackets up all year and plan to slowly swap them out so they are a lot less noticeable. They've been on my house now for about 8 months from winter through summer and seem to be fine. I tested a few of the pvc brackets a couple weeks ago and they worked as well as when they went up.
Love your posting and progress. it's great you are taking the time to document everything and enjoying yourself.
Dean
This is going to help so much next year when you look back and think...."Now, what did I do again? How do I do it all over?"
- Thread starter
- #66
Thanks for the nice comments
I might have to wait a while before trying out the natural colour PETG, i may have bought 5kg of white, and 5kgs of other various colours! Will keep it in the back of my mind for next time though
If you have a look at the icicles photo, you can see some roof clips in the background. I have a grey roof and they are grey as well, so blends as much as i can.
I think i'll look back and not believe how much i did in one year!
Thanks! Better get onto mounting those flakes then!Great write up as usual
Looking forward to the next.
- Thread starter
- #68
Awesome! Arch looks great
- Thread starter
- #69
Flake mounting frames and Roof Brackets
Conduit Frames
After 3D printing a truck load of mounts from SLF designs I then needed to make up a bunch of pvc frames to mount the fames and then fix them to the tile roof. I took inspiration from @brando https://auschristmaslighting.com/media/boydaw-rd-lights-behind-the-scenes.1515/ video for the conduit frames and combined that with @Skymaster https://auschristmaslighting.com/media/conduit-mounting-brackets-on-tiled-roof.1526/ mounting system. I then tried to simplify the pvc frame as much as possible but also allowing the ability to connect it all together in that strong triangle shape if needed. Enter the great Microsoft Excel sketch of 2023!
Not much to look at but it gave me all I needed to get cutting and gluing. I’ve seen enough ugly green/blue pvc glue to know that clear was the only way to, it was only a few $ more and happy to pay for it.
The main thing I wanted with this design, was the ability to fold them up effectively flat to reduce the amount of storage space required in the off season. My garage is much more festive than it was this time last year……. While they would be stronger if fully joined, I think they will be strong enough. Everything is fully adjustable and worked as intended……from the two minutes I left it on the roof! Haha. As the Tee fitting on the back support (to enable the folding) isn’t glued in place I may need to add a cable tie to hold that bit together when I get to final installation, for now it should be fine.
After the test on the roof, I got down to mass fabrication. I cut all the conduits for the other 11 mounts in one go and then put them together factory style. In 30mins the other 11 were cut, glued and ready for flakes!
Pro Tip - Avoid the big Green shed!
Don’t buy the conduits and fittings at Bunnings, its fine if you only need a few, but I bought around 80 elbows, 80 tees and 15lengths of 20mm conduit. If you find a local irrigation centre, you can get it for under half the price.
Bunnings Price per mount (19/9/2023 prices)
4x 20mm Tees @ $2.95ea = $11.80
2x 20mm Elbows @ $1.85 = $3.70
1.5m 20mm conduit @ $9.42/3m = $4.71 (Bunnings sell in 3/6m lengths. 6m is $13.44)
Total = $20.21/mount
Perth Irrigation Centre (19/9/2023 prices)
4x 20mm Tees @ $1.01ea = $4.04
2x 20mm Elbows @ $0.58 = $1.16
1.5m 20mm conduit @7.68/4m = $2.88 (even cheaper if you by in 6m lengths)
Total = $8.08/mount
For just the 12 flake mounts the cost is $96.96 vs $242.52. Huge difference! Add in all the other props I’m making and it’s a significate saving. Savings that could be better spent on more pixels!
3D Mounts
After the conduit frames were made it was onto connecting the flakes to the conduit. I printed enough mounts for 3 per flake, but after putting 2 on, it was clear that would be more than enough to hold in place. Plus with the cable tie holes built into the clip, I always had the cable tie as backup. Super simple to attach to coro, find a few places that line up with the conduit frames. Mark cable tie holes on the coro and drill with a 4mm or larger drill bit. Thread cable tie through the mount and coro and done! I don’t show it in the photos below, but once complete I added the cable through the stem of the mount to go around the conduit. 12 flakes mounted in flat pack form!
Roof mounts
I didn’t reinvent the wheel here and followed exactly what Skymaster did (not sure if he came up with it, but 10/10 idea, great stuff!). They are comprised out of 25mm electrical conduit clips from bunnings (25mm electrical conduit fits 20mm pressure pvc conduit for those that are interested, it’s a little tight but fits), Carinya 20x600 1mm flat make-a-bracket (Bunnings), and a bolt/nut/washer. I used stainless steel hardware though any will do, I purchased mine from Fastener Factory online. Good thing with the make-a-bracket is that they are easy to cut and bend to the right shape. For the roof tiles, having them perfectly flat was best and a slight bend made them work for the ridge line. A slight tweak up on the roof to get each one perfect was all it took if that was needed at all. As I have 1inch pixel spacing on the ridge line, the brackets needed to be in the exact spot otherwise they wont clip in. What I did was take up each length of drill conduits with the pixels installed onto the roof and mark out spots along the ridge where it would be clear with a permanent marker. Finding these makes later during gluing made it super easy.
To fix into place, I picked the cheapest clear roofing silicon I could find. It had plenty of hold and can always add a little more silicon if it comes loose. One tube of silicon did over 60mounts (2 glue points per mount) and have some left over in the tube. Really didn’t need the 5 tubes I ordered……..
So now my house looks a little like a porcupine close up, thankfully it’s not that noticeable from the street driving by. I have had a few neighbours wonder why I’m gluing cr@p all over the roof, little do they know! Also tried out how the arch would look on the roof! Snazzy!
xLights flakes modifications
Before all of the above, I asked my wife the important question. Should the snow flakes be sitting with the points facing directly up/down, or flatter with the tow points straddling the verticals. Of course my wife chose the option that wasn’t the default in xLights. No worries, I’ll just use the 3D rotation tool in xLights…… so I did just that. Wrong! I was fortunately in the zoom room at the time getting some help on an unrelated item (no resolution on the other question unfortunately), but through conversation they explained the correct way to rotate a prop. Glad I got their help as I don’t think I would have figured it out.
To rotate you need to click on the flake, Model Data, right click on the grid pattern and click rotate x, then you can specify how many degrees you need to rotate. In my case it was exactly 30degrees. Now while this fixed the issue, the rotation approximates the location of the pixels in current grid and things look a little off. (Hit, it doesn’t look like a sad potato in the middle!) With newfound confidence with 15seconds of zoom room help I then copied the pixel layout into excel and proceed to re-distribute the pixels to more evenly represent what the flake actually looks like. I don’t think this will make any visual difference at all, but it made me feel better to have a nice symmetric model and that I learnt how to do a thing. (if I’m totally wrong about what I have written, please let me, I’m writing it down like I know what I’m doing but I’m one wrong button click from hitting the meltdown button by mistake)
Haven’t found a copy paste setting from one prop to another, so updated all 20flakes individually. 5mins later and all done.
Finishing pushing pixels for 2023!
With all the other props finished, it was time to tackle the final pixels of 2023! Two singing faces that I bought it a moment of weakness during the Extreme Lighting Displays July sales. I made up a few custom length strings and added in some power injection wires and got to pushing. A few evenings later they were done. Bringing my first-year total pixels pushed to 14,132! Thank goodness I can tick that off the to-do list. I also put my 3D printer to work and printed up some coro backer plates to give some strength to the slit coro. The plates make a huge difference and now rock solid. I still need to attach some PVC pipe to the back for mounting once I finalise the location, 99% sure where they need to go.
Up Next
More things are finished, but I need more time to write them! These posts are taking waaay longer to write that I thought they would. Stay tuned for:
Conduit Frames
After 3D printing a truck load of mounts from SLF designs I then needed to make up a bunch of pvc frames to mount the fames and then fix them to the tile roof. I took inspiration from @brando https://auschristmaslighting.com/media/boydaw-rd-lights-behind-the-scenes.1515/ video for the conduit frames and combined that with @Skymaster https://auschristmaslighting.com/media/conduit-mounting-brackets-on-tiled-roof.1526/ mounting system. I then tried to simplify the pvc frame as much as possible but also allowing the ability to connect it all together in that strong triangle shape if needed. Enter the great Microsoft Excel sketch of 2023!
Not much to look at but it gave me all I needed to get cutting and gluing. I’ve seen enough ugly green/blue pvc glue to know that clear was the only way to, it was only a few $ more and happy to pay for it.
The main thing I wanted with this design, was the ability to fold them up effectively flat to reduce the amount of storage space required in the off season. My garage is much more festive than it was this time last year……. While they would be stronger if fully joined, I think they will be strong enough. Everything is fully adjustable and worked as intended……from the two minutes I left it on the roof! Haha. As the Tee fitting on the back support (to enable the folding) isn’t glued in place I may need to add a cable tie to hold that bit together when I get to final installation, for now it should be fine.
After the test on the roof, I got down to mass fabrication. I cut all the conduits for the other 11 mounts in one go and then put them together factory style. In 30mins the other 11 were cut, glued and ready for flakes!
Pro Tip - Avoid the big Green shed!
Don’t buy the conduits and fittings at Bunnings, its fine if you only need a few, but I bought around 80 elbows, 80 tees and 15lengths of 20mm conduit. If you find a local irrigation centre, you can get it for under half the price.
Bunnings Price per mount (19/9/2023 prices)
4x 20mm Tees @ $2.95ea = $11.80
2x 20mm Elbows @ $1.85 = $3.70
1.5m 20mm conduit @ $9.42/3m = $4.71 (Bunnings sell in 3/6m lengths. 6m is $13.44)
Total = $20.21/mount
Perth Irrigation Centre (19/9/2023 prices)
4x 20mm Tees @ $1.01ea = $4.04
2x 20mm Elbows @ $0.58 = $1.16
1.5m 20mm conduit @7.68/4m = $2.88 (even cheaper if you by in 6m lengths)
Total = $8.08/mount
For just the 12 flake mounts the cost is $96.96 vs $242.52. Huge difference! Add in all the other props I’m making and it’s a significate saving. Savings that could be better spent on more pixels!
3D Mounts
After the conduit frames were made it was onto connecting the flakes to the conduit. I printed enough mounts for 3 per flake, but after putting 2 on, it was clear that would be more than enough to hold in place. Plus with the cable tie holes built into the clip, I always had the cable tie as backup. Super simple to attach to coro, find a few places that line up with the conduit frames. Mark cable tie holes on the coro and drill with a 4mm or larger drill bit. Thread cable tie through the mount and coro and done! I don’t show it in the photos below, but once complete I added the cable through the stem of the mount to go around the conduit. 12 flakes mounted in flat pack form!
Roof mounts
I didn’t reinvent the wheel here and followed exactly what Skymaster did (not sure if he came up with it, but 10/10 idea, great stuff!). They are comprised out of 25mm electrical conduit clips from bunnings (25mm electrical conduit fits 20mm pressure pvc conduit for those that are interested, it’s a little tight but fits), Carinya 20x600 1mm flat make-a-bracket (Bunnings), and a bolt/nut/washer. I used stainless steel hardware though any will do, I purchased mine from Fastener Factory online. Good thing with the make-a-bracket is that they are easy to cut and bend to the right shape. For the roof tiles, having them perfectly flat was best and a slight bend made them work for the ridge line. A slight tweak up on the roof to get each one perfect was all it took if that was needed at all. As I have 1inch pixel spacing on the ridge line, the brackets needed to be in the exact spot otherwise they wont clip in. What I did was take up each length of drill conduits with the pixels installed onto the roof and mark out spots along the ridge where it would be clear with a permanent marker. Finding these makes later during gluing made it super easy.
To fix into place, I picked the cheapest clear roofing silicon I could find. It had plenty of hold and can always add a little more silicon if it comes loose. One tube of silicon did over 60mounts (2 glue points per mount) and have some left over in the tube. Really didn’t need the 5 tubes I ordered……..
So now my house looks a little like a porcupine close up, thankfully it’s not that noticeable from the street driving by. I have had a few neighbours wonder why I’m gluing cr@p all over the roof, little do they know! Also tried out how the arch would look on the roof! Snazzy!
xLights flakes modifications
Before all of the above, I asked my wife the important question. Should the snow flakes be sitting with the points facing directly up/down, or flatter with the tow points straddling the verticals. Of course my wife chose the option that wasn’t the default in xLights. No worries, I’ll just use the 3D rotation tool in xLights…… so I did just that. Wrong! I was fortunately in the zoom room at the time getting some help on an unrelated item (no resolution on the other question unfortunately), but through conversation they explained the correct way to rotate a prop. Glad I got their help as I don’t think I would have figured it out.
To rotate you need to click on the flake, Model Data, right click on the grid pattern and click rotate x, then you can specify how many degrees you need to rotate. In my case it was exactly 30degrees. Now while this fixed the issue, the rotation approximates the location of the pixels in current grid and things look a little off. (Hit, it doesn’t look like a sad potato in the middle!) With newfound confidence with 15seconds of zoom room help I then copied the pixel layout into excel and proceed to re-distribute the pixels to more evenly represent what the flake actually looks like. I don’t think this will make any visual difference at all, but it made me feel better to have a nice symmetric model and that I learnt how to do a thing. (if I’m totally wrong about what I have written, please let me, I’m writing it down like I know what I’m doing but I’m one wrong button click from hitting the meltdown button by mistake)
Haven’t found a copy paste setting from one prop to another, so updated all 20flakes individually. 5mins later and all done.
Finishing pushing pixels for 2023!
With all the other props finished, it was time to tackle the final pixels of 2023! Two singing faces that I bought it a moment of weakness during the Extreme Lighting Displays July sales. I made up a few custom length strings and added in some power injection wires and got to pushing. A few evenings later they were done. Bringing my first-year total pixels pushed to 14,132! Thank goodness I can tick that off the to-do list. I also put my 3D printer to work and printed up some coro backer plates to give some strength to the slit coro. The plates make a huge difference and now rock solid. I still need to attach some PVC pipe to the back for mounting once I finalise the location, 99% sure where they need to go.
Up Next
More things are finished, but I need more time to write them! These posts are taking waaay longer to write that I thought they would. Stay tuned for:
- Showstopper flake house mounts
- House mounts for veritcals
- Mega tree
- Getto FFP testing setup
- House Networking
- Mega Tree!
Jeeze.. I've bean slack! Only done One mediam star (Got three more), 10 mini trees, 10 mini tree stars, 6 mega tree strands (up from 18 to 24), purchased some hardware (J bolts), washers, nuts for tree. Waiting on sleigh and reindeer to arrive to add pixels.
Last edited:
Lachi3
New elf
Huh. I'd never thought about orientation. Mine were in the xLights model position, but now i want to rotate them. I think they look better. Thanks!Haven’t found a copy paste setting from one prop to another, so updated all 20flakes individually. 5mins later and all done.
- Thread starter
- #72
Mega Tree!
I dug a hole!
In my defence it was a very deep hole and I’m really proud of said hole. I work in construction and found this in the rubbish pile and then have been hanging onto this big bit of conduit since Jan 2023. I just knew it would be perfect for a Mega tree footing back when I though my display would cost $5k! It was a simpler time, with more money in the bank and no idea of the lack of free time I would have due to the blinky blink. It was in a slightly used condition when I got it, however a quick trim with a circular saw cut it down to 1100mm and was ready to sit in my garden bed……for 9months. Thanks understanding wife!
When the time came to dig the hole, I looked at my shovels, spades and digging things and realised I was not prepared for that level of manual effort. Enter the Auger drill bit! What a beast and made the job so much easier. It still took a lot of work with a tiny spade to dig out all of the sand from the hole one it was loosen, but I’ll take loosened dirt over compacted ground any day of the week! Pro tip, put a large bit of wood/table top near where you want to drill/dig your hole. It distributes the weight over the hole evenly and will prevent cave ins. Then again maybe you live somewhere that doesn’t have sand for garden, or even a garden! Fancy!
With the hole dug, I backfilled the outside and watered it in every shovel full of sand to make sure it was all compacted and sturdy. Filled the bottom of the hole with half a bag of aggregate to allow for draining through the pole conduit, and sized up a conduit liner to match the pole that I bought. 4 bags of 20kg readymix concrete and jobs done!
Mega Tree Design
Before my transport shenanigans below, deciding on a mega tree design was a choice between two different options with pros and cons.
For those in the USA, getting the parts listed in the ASAP guides is trivial and imperial measurements mean something to you. I look at it and can read it but nothing sinks into the grey matter. As it turns out Aussie metric stuff is just as weird and our sizing lines up to the tenth of a millimetre…..weird.
Checking the Rigid Metal Conduit (RMC) sizing vs our Aussie equivalent Medium Galv Pipe does the job nicely, with only slight variances in the wall thickness.
The ASAP comes with a few USA things that aren’t that easy to locate.
The winch plate is really dependent on the winch you get, and that will determine the spacing. I used this cheap as chips winch from Kogan for $29. https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/costco...le-boat-trailer-4wd-winch-hand_winch_1500lbs/ Should do the job nicely.
For the plate itself I repurposed an old aluminium sign. Hopefully the messaging on the sign isn’t ominous! Thickness is 1mm, so I doubled it up to 2mm and from the test I have done should be fine. For a little more strength, using 3-5mm steel would also work well. I cut it down to size on the miter saw and rounded the edges with an angle grinder. 8mm holes were drilled on the drill press then a quick coat of black spray paint to finish it off.
What I used
And just like that, its was done.
Car of Steel
I was all set to get the steel delivered when I looked at the delivery price $140!!!! I live less than 10mins from Midalia Steel so quick measure of the car and figured I could Magiver it in and save on the delivery fee. Asked the guys to cut it down the 6.5m lengths to 3.6 and 2.9m sections. Fits like a glove!
Time to put it all together Md stand in the hole to give a it a test fit. Putting the poles in a few at a time wasn’t too bad, but when it came to remove it all together. WOW it is heavy, even without the metal topper, mega star and other crap hanging off it. Will definitely be a two/three person job!
The plan is to do a detailed separate Mega Tree write up when i get some time with more detailed photos and plans. One of the biggest hurdles i found with making the ASAP design was just trying to interpret the online plans. Hopefully I can have a crack at it and help the community a little.
The Topper and Topper Connections
So while the OG ASAP guide uses those gate clamps I wanted an easier way. Enter pole handrail fittings. They are designed for 40NB sizing exactly so work perfectly. Ezayrail 140 Gate Hinge vs the original design. Waaaaay easier and locally available for much much cheaper. $13.42 AUD plus postage! Ezyrail 140 - Gate Hinge Male Part - Safety Xpress
This led me to the four fixing base flange, at $34.21 its quite a bit more than the flange plate I linked before but as I didn’t have threaded pipe this was the option I found. I originally was going to get something custom fabricated from a metal shop, but why bother when something like this exists for reasonable money. Ezyrail 234 - Four Fixings Point Square Base Flange - Safety Xpress
The Steel topper is from Piptree Designs. Awesome quality and locally made! Check them out at Mega Tree Toppers | Piptree Designs (square.site) I have unfortunately found out that they are out of stock for the 2023 Christmas season, but check back in 2024, the quality is really something awesome for reasonable prices.
So a quick sand down to get rid of some minor service rust and 3 coats of black to make it look all flash. For the topper, I couldn’t go past the 270pix star! Add in some 3D printed mounts to connect the steel topper to the mega star and I was set. Cable ties are doubled up and ive given it the ‘its got going anywhere’ shake. I really am impressed by the strength of the conduits and fittings, way stronger than it looks. I hope! Some extra cable ties will be put over the 3D printed mounts when it’s ready to go up. As I’m still moving it around I wanted the ability to disconnect the star from topper easily.
A AliExpress purchase rounded out the M6 stainless steel hooks for the mega tree strips. 32x150 strips of lighting goodness! The two eyelets at the back will be for the guy wires.
I think I am 95% ready for Christmas, with setup planned for mid Nov. Hopefully I find some time from now until then for the rest of this write up.
Task done but not written up
I dug a hole!
In my defence it was a very deep hole and I’m really proud of said hole. I work in construction and found this in the rubbish pile and then have been hanging onto this big bit of conduit since Jan 2023. I just knew it would be perfect for a Mega tree footing back when I though my display would cost $5k! It was a simpler time, with more money in the bank and no idea of the lack of free time I would have due to the blinky blink. It was in a slightly used condition when I got it, however a quick trim with a circular saw cut it down to 1100mm and was ready to sit in my garden bed……for 9months. Thanks understanding wife!
When the time came to dig the hole, I looked at my shovels, spades and digging things and realised I was not prepared for that level of manual effort. Enter the Auger drill bit! What a beast and made the job so much easier. It still took a lot of work with a tiny spade to dig out all of the sand from the hole one it was loosen, but I’ll take loosened dirt over compacted ground any day of the week! Pro tip, put a large bit of wood/table top near where you want to drill/dig your hole. It distributes the weight over the hole evenly and will prevent cave ins. Then again maybe you live somewhere that doesn’t have sand for garden, or even a garden! Fancy!
With the hole dug, I backfilled the outside and watered it in every shovel full of sand to make sure it was all compacted and sturdy. Filled the bottom of the hole with half a bag of aggregate to allow for draining through the pole conduit, and sized up a conduit liner to match the pole that I bought. 4 bags of 20kg readymix concrete and jobs done!
Mega Tree Design
Before my transport shenanigans below, deciding on a mega tree design was a choice between two different options with pros and cons.
- ASAP (A strap and pole) style
- Winch midway up the pole that lifts via the winches from the bottom
- Magic Christmas - Home
- Sasquatch Style
- Winch midway up the pole that winches from the top over a pully.
- Sasquatch™ MegaTree™ Kit – Mattos Designs LLC
For those in the USA, getting the parts listed in the ASAP guides is trivial and imperial measurements mean something to you. I look at it and can read it but nothing sinks into the grey matter. As it turns out Aussie metric stuff is just as weird and our sizing lines up to the tenth of a millimetre…..weird.
Checking the Rigid Metal Conduit (RMC) sizing vs our Aussie equivalent Medium Galv Pipe does the job nicely, with only slight variances in the wall thickness.
- 1” RMC = MGP 20NB – OD 26.9mm, ID 21.7mm, Wall 2.6mm (RMC is 3.2mm)
- 1.5” RMC = MGP 40NB – OD 48.3mm, ID 41.9mm, Wall 3.2mm (RMC Wall 1.65mm)
- 2” RMC = MGP 50NB – OD 60.3mm, ID 53.3mm, Wall 3.5mm (RMC Wall 3.7mm)
The ASAP comes with a few USA things that aren’t that easy to locate.
- Gate Hinge for 2” Pipe
- Hinge,Pipe Gate 2" : Amazon.com.au: Home Improvement
- Don’t trust what the listing says, its only the 1 gate hinge rather than the 5 pieces I thought it came with. I bought this one as a backup in case my next idea didn’t work (it totally worked!).
- Don’t buy this
- Flange Plate to connect to topper plate
- Flange Round 40nb Galvanised (F40R) : Rural Fencing & Irrigation Supplies Perth (ruralfencingsupplies.com.au)
- I have since found out that you can get pipe that has threaded ends, and this would make an excellent/cheaper option to the way I went. I had already bought the non-threaded steel before finding the threaded version so was a bit redundant.
- Exhaust Clamps
- Spareco Exhaust Clamp - C11, 60mm (2-3 / 8 inch) | Supercheap Auto
- You want at least the C11 60mm size for the pipe. Fits nicely and quite cheap and nice to find in a local shop.
- Imperial Bolts
- While imperial bolts are easily found at the big green shed, I just had to go metric. M8 does the job for everything.
- Metal Spacers
- Can’t really give much guidance on this one, I found some in the garage. No idea what they were from but does the job. I don’t think metal spacers would be too hard to get. If they are, just go crazy on stacking bolts/washers up on top of each other. Same same.
The winch plate is really dependent on the winch you get, and that will determine the spacing. I used this cheap as chips winch from Kogan for $29. https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/costco...le-boat-trailer-4wd-winch-hand_winch_1500lbs/ Should do the job nicely.
For the plate itself I repurposed an old aluminium sign. Hopefully the messaging on the sign isn’t ominous! Thickness is 1mm, so I doubled it up to 2mm and from the test I have done should be fine. For a little more strength, using 3-5mm steel would also work well. I cut it down to size on the miter saw and rounded the edges with an angle grinder. 8mm holes were drilled on the drill press then a quick coat of black spray paint to finish it off.
What I used
- 4 x 60mm pipe clamps
- 4 x 130mm M8 bolts
- 4 x 40mm M8 bolts
- 1 x 20mm M8 bolt. Middle bolt. As this one should be as flat as possible, I took to it with the angle grinder to flatten it out. I still may flatten it out a little more if I get time.
- M8 washers and nuts
- 4 x steel spacers (found in my garage) or a bunch of nuts to required height.
- 4 x plastic/pvc spaces. 15mm pvc would do the job, but again I had some plastic spacers in my garage so used those instead. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something to enable the steel push pole to slide past in a snugish fit.
And just like that, its was done.
Car of Steel
I was all set to get the steel delivered when I looked at the delivery price $140!!!! I live less than 10mins from Midalia Steel so quick measure of the car and figured I could Magiver it in and save on the delivery fee. Asked the guys to cut it down the 6.5m lengths to 3.6 and 2.9m sections. Fits like a glove!
Time to put it all together Md stand in the hole to give a it a test fit. Putting the poles in a few at a time wasn’t too bad, but when it came to remove it all together. WOW it is heavy, even without the metal topper, mega star and other crap hanging off it. Will definitely be a two/three person job!
The plan is to do a detailed separate Mega Tree write up when i get some time with more detailed photos and plans. One of the biggest hurdles i found with making the ASAP design was just trying to interpret the online plans. Hopefully I can have a crack at it and help the community a little.
The Topper and Topper Connections
So while the OG ASAP guide uses those gate clamps I wanted an easier way. Enter pole handrail fittings. They are designed for 40NB sizing exactly so work perfectly. Ezayrail 140 Gate Hinge vs the original design. Waaaaay easier and locally available for much much cheaper. $13.42 AUD plus postage! Ezyrail 140 - Gate Hinge Male Part - Safety Xpress
This led me to the four fixing base flange, at $34.21 its quite a bit more than the flange plate I linked before but as I didn’t have threaded pipe this was the option I found. I originally was going to get something custom fabricated from a metal shop, but why bother when something like this exists for reasonable money. Ezyrail 234 - Four Fixings Point Square Base Flange - Safety Xpress
The Steel topper is from Piptree Designs. Awesome quality and locally made! Check them out at Mega Tree Toppers | Piptree Designs (square.site) I have unfortunately found out that they are out of stock for the 2023 Christmas season, but check back in 2024, the quality is really something awesome for reasonable prices.
So a quick sand down to get rid of some minor service rust and 3 coats of black to make it look all flash. For the topper, I couldn’t go past the 270pix star! Add in some 3D printed mounts to connect the steel topper to the mega star and I was set. Cable ties are doubled up and ive given it the ‘its got going anywhere’ shake. I really am impressed by the strength of the conduits and fittings, way stronger than it looks. I hope! Some extra cable ties will be put over the 3D printed mounts when it’s ready to go up. As I’m still moving it around I wanted the ability to disconnect the star from topper easily.
A AliExpress purchase rounded out the M6 stainless steel hooks for the mega tree strips. 32x150 strips of lighting goodness! The two eyelets at the back will be for the guy wires.
I think I am 95% ready for Christmas, with setup planned for mid Nov. Hopefully I find some time from now until then for the rest of this write up.
Task done but not written up
- House mounts
- Showstopper mounts
- Getting FFP working and my temp setup
- House networking and permanent FPP/Beaglebone setup
- Sequencing
- Push button mount pole
- Push button plate
- Facebook page setup
- Setting up a charity donate page/QR coded
- Put everything up!
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #74
I’m waaay behind on this write up!
So, do I just skip to the end and say everything worked perfectly and share the finished product? Of course not, it’s the journey that counts and with a day off today being sick it seemed the perfect time to update the thread with a new post.
Networking
I wasn’t looking forward to this bit and I put it off longer than I should have. What could have been a nice warm roof experience became an almost died of heat exhausted in summer. C’est la vie!
As I am running a Falcon F48, its basically one big network switch with network cables needing to run everywhere. I also wanted them to be neat and tidy as well as accessible from the main controller location (in the roof space) and from outside the house. I decided on running 1 extra network cable to each location that my current needs, this is likely not going to cut it in future years, but was a good starting point. This resulted it
Note: There may be one extra hole in the garage roof when I hit a wooden beam. The less said about that the better. If my wife asks, it came with the house.
I also ran an extra cable from the Controller back to my home networking rack. There were……….issues which I’ll go through in the trouble shooting section.
Mounting
This section will be all about the various mounts I used on my display. Most are shamelessly stolen from other members of this forum, who I’m sure stole them from someone else. So please, steal any of these ideas if it will work for you
Showstopper Flake Mounting
For this heavy monster, I wanted a way to be able to just clip it into place as much as possible to minimise the amount of time I was holding this thing on a ladder. What I came up with was a combination of 3D printed clips to connect the prop to a conduit frame, and then standard conduit clips connected to the wall with SS wall plugs. For added safety, the 3D printed clips are cable tied around the conduit (just not shown in this photo) and once the flake was mounted up on the wall. I have just enough space to get my hand around the back and cable tie it into place. Both aren’t really needed, but as my kids will be walking under this to get into the house each day, maximum safety is a necessity.
Hardware: 70mm M6 SS bolt, M6 Wall Anchor, mud washer painted white x2, 20mm conduit offcut, bunnings 25mm electrical conduit clip
Wall Mounts
Wall mounts were a combination of various mounts depending on the material it was going up against.
Singing Tree Mounts
Singing trees were a bit of a last-minute addition to the display so the physical location was limited as I didn’t want to have anything in front of the garage this year. Really happy that I got the trees they are a huge hit and really make the show that much better. If you don’t have a singing prop, totally get one!
As I had a bunch of mini trees and canes in front of where I wanted them, I needed a way to lift them up as high as possible without interfering with the icicles. A delicate balance! The other consideration was that I wanted to be able to disassemble them and lay flat to reduce storage space. Enter the Christmas tree mount 3000! Custom 3D printed gutter mounts (ok I butchered one of SFL Designs mounts in TinkerCAD……sorry Jason!) so they face towards the house and don’t hit the icicles. Supported from both the gutter and the ground with locking legs over the garden bed to keep it in place. Really happy with how they turned out. I was worried about noise from the clips/conduit rubbing on the gutters as out bedroom is behind the trees, but no noise thankfully
Gingerbread Man / Arch
Gingerbread man and arch mounting were an extension of the signing tree idea and worked great. Used the garden beds to lock it in place and some back bracing on the arch as its quite an odd prop to hold in place. I also used this same design on the roof and all holding so far.
Yard Props
The people who built our house made it all architectural and put these stupid pavers everywhere in random aesthetically pleasing patters, which was fine until I needed the spacing to be perfect! So, its close to perfect spacing but not quite. My wife can’t tell, but I can!!! Sigh.
Anyway, to fix the mini trees and canes it was the old favourite of steel reo bars. This was great until I ran out and didn’t want to pay bunnings price for reo. What I did find at bunning where these pvc coated 1250mm reo bar ‘Brutus 8mm x 1250mm yellow site stakes’ that worked a treat and not needing to deal with rust covered hands is a big plus. Brutus 8mm x 1250mm Yellow Site Stake - Bunnings Australia Recommended!
The best bit for me was getting to spend time with my kids connecting up all the wires. (Oh and another massive shout out for custom length strings from LightitupLED. I got all mine with longer tails so I didn’t need to use a single extension cable for all the yard props!!!) It took way longer than just me connecting it up, but seeing my daughters out there giving it a go and seeing my 4yr old’s look of satisfaction knowing she connected everything herself was terrific. Was a really nice afternoon.
Well, that’s my 6photo limit up, so time to wrap up another post. Next up
So, do I just skip to the end and say everything worked perfectly and share the finished product? Of course not, it’s the journey that counts and with a day off today being sick it seemed the perfect time to update the thread with a new post.
Networking
I wasn’t looking forward to this bit and I put it off longer than I should have. What could have been a nice warm roof experience became an almost died of heat exhausted in summer. C’est la vie!
As I am running a Falcon F48, its basically one big network switch with network cables needing to run everywhere. I also wanted them to be neat and tidy as well as accessible from the main controller location (in the roof space) and from outside the house. I decided on running 1 extra network cable to each location that my current needs, this is likely not going to cut it in future years, but was a good starting point. This resulted it
- 4 runs to garage to drive the mega tree and some garaged lights
- 2 runs to secondary in-roof box location for roof mounted lights.
- 3 runs to right of the house for all the ground level props and low house mounted props.
Note: There may be one extra hole in the garage roof when I hit a wooden beam. The less said about that the better. If my wife asks, it came with the house.
I also ran an extra cable from the Controller back to my home networking rack. There were……….issues which I’ll go through in the trouble shooting section.
Mounting
This section will be all about the various mounts I used on my display. Most are shamelessly stolen from other members of this forum, who I’m sure stole them from someone else. So please, steal any of these ideas if it will work for you
Showstopper Flake Mounting
For this heavy monster, I wanted a way to be able to just clip it into place as much as possible to minimise the amount of time I was holding this thing on a ladder. What I came up with was a combination of 3D printed clips to connect the prop to a conduit frame, and then standard conduit clips connected to the wall with SS wall plugs. For added safety, the 3D printed clips are cable tied around the conduit (just not shown in this photo) and once the flake was mounted up on the wall. I have just enough space to get my hand around the back and cable tie it into place. Both aren’t really needed, but as my kids will be walking under this to get into the house each day, maximum safety is a necessity.
Hardware: 70mm M6 SS bolt, M6 Wall Anchor, mud washer painted white x2, 20mm conduit offcut, bunnings 25mm electrical conduit clip
Wall Mounts
Wall mounts were a combination of various mounts depending on the material it was going up against.
- For the rendered brick walls, I used the same mounts as the showstopper flake (completely overkill I know)
- For props on the tiled walls, I used self-adhesive tie mounts (32mmx32mm from memory). Just don’t rely on the included adhesive as it will fall of within days. I removed the adhesive and connected it to the walls using roofing silicon. It’s been on for just over a month now with no issues.
- Garage roof line was connected using magnets to the steel lintel. 5m gap and I’m using 8 mounts all up. Seems plenty strong but I wouldn’t be hanging full props from these magnets. They are rated for 25kg each, seems more like 5kg.
Singing Tree Mounts
Singing trees were a bit of a last-minute addition to the display so the physical location was limited as I didn’t want to have anything in front of the garage this year. Really happy that I got the trees they are a huge hit and really make the show that much better. If you don’t have a singing prop, totally get one!
As I had a bunch of mini trees and canes in front of where I wanted them, I needed a way to lift them up as high as possible without interfering with the icicles. A delicate balance! The other consideration was that I wanted to be able to disassemble them and lay flat to reduce storage space. Enter the Christmas tree mount 3000! Custom 3D printed gutter mounts (ok I butchered one of SFL Designs mounts in TinkerCAD……sorry Jason!) so they face towards the house and don’t hit the icicles. Supported from both the gutter and the ground with locking legs over the garden bed to keep it in place. Really happy with how they turned out. I was worried about noise from the clips/conduit rubbing on the gutters as out bedroom is behind the trees, but no noise thankfully
Gingerbread Man / Arch
Gingerbread man and arch mounting were an extension of the signing tree idea and worked great. Used the garden beds to lock it in place and some back bracing on the arch as its quite an odd prop to hold in place. I also used this same design on the roof and all holding so far.
Yard Props
The people who built our house made it all architectural and put these stupid pavers everywhere in random aesthetically pleasing patters, which was fine until I needed the spacing to be perfect! So, its close to perfect spacing but not quite. My wife can’t tell, but I can!!! Sigh.
Anyway, to fix the mini trees and canes it was the old favourite of steel reo bars. This was great until I ran out and didn’t want to pay bunnings price for reo. What I did find at bunning where these pvc coated 1250mm reo bar ‘Brutus 8mm x 1250mm yellow site stakes’ that worked a treat and not needing to deal with rust covered hands is a big plus. Brutus 8mm x 1250mm Yellow Site Stake - Bunnings Australia Recommended!
The best bit for me was getting to spend time with my kids connecting up all the wires. (Oh and another massive shout out for custom length strings from LightitupLED. I got all mine with longer tails so I didn’t need to use a single extension cable for all the yard props!!!) It took way longer than just me connecting it up, but seeing my daughters out there giving it a go and seeing my 4yr old’s look of satisfaction knowing she connected everything herself was terrific. Was a really nice afternoon.
Well, that’s my 6photo limit up, so time to wrap up another post. Next up
- My dodgy Halloween display.
- Props on the roof!
- Mega Tree setup
- It lives! First full display sequence
- Trouble Shooting
This is my whole display