New to Peace stakes

[BBQNinja]

Hello friends,

I haven't posted much so thought I would share my experiences.

This year I decided I need to bring my show closer to the viewers and thought Peace stakes in the nature strip would work for me as there are trees and plants plus it's on a slope so the bit I will use is not a throughfare.

For me, buying the Ray Wu 50 Pixel Stake pixels (5px x 10 cluster) made sense (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32955500636.html), and I ordered 3 to start (along with 100m of seed/pebble, but that's another post).

The point of this post is the mounting. I have mocked up 3 options.

1. Metal stake with pixels cables tied.
(Garden stakes (steel core) are half the price of steel rod at Bunnings @ about $0.9/stake)
2. 20mm Conduit - Drilled for pixels
3. Corflute - staked with old bicycle wheel spokes (Corflute $24 a 2200x1200x2.5mm sheet)


Initially thoughts are:
Option 1, having 50 steel spikes that are nearly invisible sticking out of the ground seems to be a high risk. It is the most minimalist.
Option 2, Originally thinking of making a grid using 20mm conduit Tee's but cost and flexibility makes this difficult
Option 3, Lots of work, and larger footprint making it more noticeable.

Note: Pixels in image are just leftovers, I plan to have 5px per stake.

 

[Indigogyre]

Hello,

So, I've been toying with peace stakes for the last couple of years and still trying to work it out but here are my thoughts.

Option 3. The corflute triangle? It's a bit of a pain because you need to stake it down and then still zip tie it to the stake and ends up being excess material not needed. (I tried this the first year)

Last year I decided to use a strip of coro that was then zip tied to the metal stake. Easier but if the stake was too thin there was a little wobble but not too much movement. The real pain was pounding them all in one by one.

This year I am going to do a sort of option 2. I'd like to make a row of them that will allow me to put them down easier in a single length per row. While it might be a bit more work I don't think it'll cost that much more for pvc and coro over using a bunch of more expensive metal.

There is also the option of just using the 20mm pvc as the stake itself. Cut it longer and have an angle of the bottom to help drive into the ground. You could also just cap the top for easier driving, weather and safety protection.

So, just some thoughts.

Here is a link to my behind the scenes and the Peace stakes can be seen up front listing a little.

View: https://youtu.be/tVP11wWKhcc

 

[merryoncherry]

I used option 3 for the sidewalk markers, this made it easy to put stars on top. They slip over garden stakes. But I do not have many, 10 large and 10 small.

I have a bunch of option 1 ready to go that I haven't used yet... could be used as a forest.

 

[BBQNinja]

Hello,

So, I've been toying with peace stakes for the last couple of years and still trying to work it out but here are my thoughts.

Option 3. The corflute triangle? It's a bit of a pain because you need to stake it down and then still zip tie it to the stake and ends up being excess material not needed. (I tried this the first year)

Last year I decided to use a strip of coro that was then zip tied to the metal stake. Easier but if the stake was too thin there was a little wobble but not too much movement. The real pain was pounding them all in one by one.

This year I am going to do a sort of option 2. I'd like to make a row of them that will allow me to put them down easier in a single length per row. While it might be a bit more work I don't think it'll cost that much more for pvc and coro over using a bunch of more expensive metal.

There is also the option of just using the 20mm pvc as the stake itself. Cut it longer and have an angle of the bottom to help drive into the ground. You could also just cap the top for easier driving, weather and safety protection.

So, just some thoughts.

Here is a link to my behind the scenes and the Peace stakes can be seen up front listing a little.

View: https://youtu.be/tVP11wWKhcc

Awesome, thanks for sharing.
Yeah, option 3 was corflute triangle, but perhaps I'm over complicating things, where it could be just a strip like in your video. I just liked that it was neat and wasn't too much more work to cut it a bit wider, but it is excess material.
I like the spiral trees. Hadn't thought of that.

 

[BBQNinja]

Update: Received my Ray Wu pixels and 1 of 3 are faulty. Of course, it was the first string I tested so was pulling my hair out thinking this was harder than I thought.
They are Peace stakes and should have worked with the icicle model in xLights, but were running drops of 5,9,3,4,4.
Eventually gave up and tried another string and it just worked 5,5,5,5,5

Anyone had similar? Can they really be faulty in this way given all the pixels do work, just crazy order.
I sent a message to Ray and they asked for a video which I will do tonight. I'll post with result.

 

[Indigogyre]

Awesome, thanks for sharing.
Yeah, option 3 was corflute triangle, but perhaps I'm over complicating things, where it could be just a strip like in your video. I just liked that it was neat and wasn't too much more work to cut it a bit wider, but it is excess material.
I like the spiral trees. Hadn't thought of that.

Spiral trees are simple, easy and give a nice effect with little effort. The addition of the star on top was a bonus in my attempt to make use of the mini-tree w/ star effects in most sequences.

 

[BBQNinja]

So being a public holiday here in NSW (Sydney), I have pushed ahead using what I had available on hand which was a bunch of 20mm conduit, and some leftover Synthetic Turf Anchor Nails 125mm (5"), from a previous project, so I went ahead and made these up.
Pretty happy with result. Actually more stable that I thought they would be. . Pretty quick to make using a Jig I already had for my Aldi drill press with a step drill bit.

 

[scamper]

I decided on doing some pixels stakes a few years back, but never actually got them sequenced in my show.
I used option 1... sort of. I went and bought a half dozen lengths of 6mm steel rod at $6 a length and then proceeded to cut it into half meter lengths. (ball park) I then stuck 1 end in the vice and bent it back onto itself to make a safe rounded top on it so as not to cause anyone (me mainly) any injury.
I did all of the wiring myself which for something like this was pretty easy and just ran a 1 meter cable between each stake in groups of 10 and then put a plug one end and socket with power injection the other end. That way I can ran as many or few as I want and just change it in the software if I make changes in the setup. I ended up making 40, but have already got another 10 stakes bent ready to add pixels this year.

 

[BBQNinja]

Update: Received my Ray Wu pixels and 1 of 3 are faulty. Of course, it was the first string I tested so was pulling my hair out thinking this was harder than I thought.
They are Peace stakes and should have worked with the icicle model in xLights, but were running drops of 5,9,3,4,4.
Eventually gave up and tried another string and it just worked 5,5,5,5,5

Anyone had similar? Can they really be faulty in this way given all the pixels do work, just crazy order.
I sent a message to Ray and they asked for a video which I will do tonight. I'll post with result.

FYI, Ray was very responsive and is sending a replacement string.