Gday from brisbane

brendanaldridge

brendanaldridge

New elf
Joined
Oct 25, 2023
Messages
19
Hey everyone. I'm here to learn all about making light shows. I know I don't have time or finances to start for this Xmas im hoping to buy throughout the next year and set up a small show for next year and maybe slowly add to it over time. I've put up Xmas lights I've gotten from bunnings/kmart for about 10 years but would love to do something that pops so really keen to learn alot, thanks for having me here
 
Hey Brendan. Welcome to ACL.

One good thing about joining and starting to think about it now - is that you can hopefully go and check out some peoples show's and get some real ideas and feedback about what you like and how to get it running. There's a Display Locations tab up the top -- try and reach out to some of the folks nearby to you and see if you can arrange some time in Nov/Dec to get a behind the scenes look at a show. (I'd offer my place - but it's a little far from Brissie).
 
thewanderingpine said:
Hey Brendan. Welcome to ACL.

One good thing about joining and starting to think about it now - is that you can hopefully go and check out some peoples show's and get some real ideas and feedback about what you like and how to get it running. There's a Display Locations tab up the top -- try and reach out to some of the folks nearby to you and see if you can arrange some time in Nov/Dec to get a behind the scenes look at a show. (I'd offer my place - but it's a little far from Brissie).
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Appreciate the advice I'd love to check some out so will defiently have a look. O definitely wanted to have time to learn etc before next year even if I only want a couple arches, a couple singing and maybe a tree or something to start with just to get my feet wet, then look to add a bit more every year
 
It all depends on budget and time, and I tend to have neither so I work with dream big but be realistic.

Welcome :)
 
Welcome to ACL!
Take my personal advice, dont dive in and buy stuff straight away, do some research and find out what components will suit your display and its inevitable expansion in the future. As thewanderingpine suggested, use this season to visit displays and discuss what makes them tick and see if that's the route you'd like to go down. Jump into chat anytime to say gday and ask questions you can't find in the forums.
 
djgra79 said:
Welcome to ACL!
Take my personal advice, dont dive in and buy stuff straight away, do some research and find out what components will suit your display and its inevitable expansion in the future. As thewanderingpine suggested, use this season to visit displays and discuss what makes them tick and see if that's the route you'd like to go down. Jump into chat anytime to say gday and ask questions you can't find in the forums.
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Appreciate it. Yeah there appears to be a couple local that I want to check out. But I think its a natural progression from static displays and I'd love to surprise my wife with it lol. But im defiently doing research
 
brendanaldridge said:
Appreciate it. Yeah there appears to be a couple local that I want to check out. But I think its a natural progression from static displays and I'd love to surprise my wife with it lol. But im defiently doing research
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This is definitely not a surprise hobby for family members. Your house/garage/shed will progressively fill up with more and more 'stuff' in preparation for Christmas.
Beyond the equipment itself, practically nothing in this hobby is ready to run and takes many many hours put together, assemble and figure out. All awesome fun, and hope you enjoy that part of the hobby as much as i do as well.

You may surprise your neighbours though! Although the frequent trips onto your roof may tip them off :p
 
Johnnyboy said:
This is definitely not a surprise hobby for family members. Your house/garage/shed will progressively fill up with more and more 'stuff' in preparation for Christmas.
Beyond the equipment itself, practically nothing in this hobby is ready to run and takes many many hours put together, assemble and figure out. All awesome fun, and hope you enjoy that part of the hobby as much as i do as well.

You may surprise your neighbours though! Although the frequent trips onto your roof may tip them off :p
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Well as I mentioned I have been doing static displays for years, but I have worked with electrics before and know my way around a soldering iron so that's no sweat. I just need to keep her out of the garage for the next 12 months 🤣 ok maybe I'll include her in it after I've bought everything
 
brendanaldridge said:
I've put up Xmas lights I've gotten from bunnings/kmart for about 10 years but would love to do something that pops so really keen to learn alot, thanks for having me here
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There’s nothing wrong with “traditional” fairy lights. If you want to level-up quickly, you can buy a controller from Hanson Electronics to sync all your Christmas light strings together.

You’re in my shoes from last year so this is what I’d do if starting again:
  • start playing with xlights or even on paper but do it to scale and count how many lights and props. You can assume traditional spacing to make it easy.
  • Prepare a plan and share it here—we’ll help you with power supplies, voltage drop, ideas, etc
  • Subscribe to the bulk buys thread and keep an eye out for next Feb. if you’ve planned it well you can get custom length strings to fit your props without having to solder a thousand ends… as well as power supplies and spacing strip
  • Then throughout the year it’s making, soldering, testing, sequencing, and all the fun stuff!
 
Iain said:
There’s nothing wrong with “traditional” fairy lights. If you want to level-up quickly, you can buy a controller from Hanson Electronics to sync all your Christmas light strings together.

You’re in my shoes from last year so this is what I’d do if starting again:
  • start playing with xlights or even on paper but do it to scale and count how many lights and props. You can assume traditional spacing to make it easy.
  • Prepare a plan and share it here—we’ll help you with power supplies, voltage drop, ideas, etc
  • Subscribe to the bulk buys thread and keep an eye out for next Feb. if you’ve planned it well you can get custom length strings to fit your props without having to solder a thousand ends… as well as power supplies and spacing strip
  • Then throughout the year it’s making, soldering, testing, sequencing, and all the fun stuff!
Click to expand...
Tha ks for the tip
 
To give you all an idea something small like this is what I was looking to start with
 

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Simple yet effective, and some good props to learn on, as well as get some nice shows out of. The singing element is definitely an eye catcher.
Take your time to figure it out, how it all pieces together etc- everyone here will be more than happy to help.
All the other advice above is very sound.
 
Skymaster said:
Simple yet effective, and some good props to learn on, as well as get some nice shows out of. The singing element is definitely an eye catcher.
Take your time to figure it out, how it all pieces together etc- everyone here will be more than happy to help.
All the other advice above is very sound.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'm.gonna start pricing things up now so I know how much I need to.put together, i thought I might be able to save money on the props if I can find some templates to use and make them myself. I'm handy with some tools and have heaps of ply floating around so could probably whip them up pretty eaisly
 
Ply is fine but something light and waterproof is (maybe) better. Which is why a lot of us buy/make them out of corflute. You can print on it, paint it, and drill/melt through it easily.

There’s some discussion somewhere here about types of corflute.

if you can design or choose your flakes/spinners early, then you can get the string pixel count made to match. Only thing to watch out for (if making them) is the spacing between each pixel as you have to run some fancy patterns to be able to get one continuous string to pass through each hole!
 
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