Sinnamon Christmas Lights 2010 - Brisbane Australia

[Steve22537]

Wow Geoff that was absolutely awesome. Your dispay is going to save me so much time for next year. I'm going to install a huge projector screen in front of my house and have you movie clip projected onto it, do you think anyone will notice.

Steve

 

[aussiexmas]

Where abouts in Brisbane are you? I wanna go for a drive - even in the rain

Hi Driver
We are at Sinnamon Park (Furness Cres).
Lights will be running til New Years Eve (inclusive). Hoping to get some dry nights before then but the weather bureau keeps giving pessimistic forecasts. If you do visit, please press our door bell (at the gate) & if I'm home, I'd be happy to show you around.
Merry Christmas

 

[SmartAlecLights]

Wow, What a superb show you have.
so many things happening at once, my eye's were in lights overload
plenty on inspiration there.
smartalec

 

[JPB]

Excellent display and excellent video as well.
What sort of camera and what settings did you use?

Jon

 

[aussiexmas]

What sort of camera and what settings did you use?

Jon

Hi Jon
For this clip I used the video option on my still camera - Panasonic DMC-TZ15. It records at 1280*720 but in Quicktime format which was painful to add the clean music track. The settings were mostly as set by the camera automaticly, except I selected the "warm"colour balance to enhance the reds (probably at the expense of the blues).

I had previously tried my daughters new Sony NEX 5 which was capable of full HD, but the video ended up somewhat washed out and was disappointing. There are probably ways of adjusting the exposure but we ran out of time.

Regards Geoff

 

[fj]

wow !! simply stunning.

you have such a great sense of balance. most average domestic displays just tend to flood their yard with as many lights as they can get in there which makes it hard to follow. but your display is so well balanced with regards to the amount of lights, colours and placement that you can just sit back and watch the whole yard without being confused about where or what to look at.

i'd love to see pictures of the setup during the day and hear about the equipment you used. there must have been so much work gone into your display.

do you have a website setup with details / pictures at all?

cheers, fj

 

[Al in Raleigh]

Geoff, your display is amazing. Denny and I used Geoff's star display on our houses this year in Raleigh, and the stars were a huge hit. Geoff is an artist. Geoff openly gave me his design and photos last year when I saw a video of his display. What a guy. Thank you Geoff and Happy New Year to you and your family from the US.

Al

PS: We are making Geoff's stars during our welding workshop for the Raleigh area lighting group (TASL) this year. His design will be all over our area next year. Now that is a tribute.

 

[XDU]

Well Done

 

[aussiexmas]

i'd love to see pictures of the setup during the day and hear about the equipment you used. there must have been so much work gone into your display.

do you have a website setup with details / pictures at all?

cheers, fj

Sorry fj, No website yet - may try a setup later this year (2011)
Attached are a number of day pictures of the setup and controllers (next post).

I am a LOR user. Started with AC boards 5-6 years ago (now have 10), but I am progressively shifting to DC boards (now have 19). For the DC boards I use a variety of DC voltages to suit the lights or the modified strings. I initially decided to work with 24 and 36V, but then found a series of lights that worked at 26V and 30V, so I now use these supply voltages as required. For most of my light extension wire I use light speaker wire and usually direct connect this to the DC board terminal strips. More in next post.

 

[aussiexmas]

Last year and again this year I have used a number of Big W strings (2 circuit wiring). For the mega tree which has 12 segments of each colour, I connect both string channels to a single LOR channel when I want to chase etc. However, to make use of the 2 circuit wiring in the strings, I have connected a crossover relay to each string and its neighbour so that when the relay is activated, the first LOR channel controls one circuit on each of the adjacent strings while the next LOR channel controls the other 2 circuits. This allows me to twinkle the tree without needing 24 LOR channels for the 12 strings and the 2 circuits/string. Just use 12, + 1 for the 12 relays on the 12 strings. The twinkle is typically .1 sec on/off with the next LOR channel in antiphase (off/on) etc. This works very effectively but does not show well in the videos. Relays are the black bits with plugs connected.

For namy of my boards, I make use of well protected areas under the eaves to mount my control boards. These are out of the way for safety, but are still relatively easy to access for wiring using a step ladder.

 

[Steve22537]

Hi Geoff,

Could I get more detail about your shooting stars.
1. Size
2. Pole height
3. No. of stages on the poles
4. Colours

Would be most greatfull, as I'm wanting similar stars

Steve

 

[aussiexmas]

Hi Geoff,

Could I get more detail about your shooting stars.
1. Size
2. Pole height
3. No. of stages on the poles
4. Colours

Would be most greatfull, as I'm wanting similar stars

Steve

Hi Steve

I used the ideas from Crooks Christmas (Joe Noe) for my stars and modified them to suit our available lights. see http://forums.planetchristmas.com/showthread.php/29530-My-Firework-Shooting-Stars-More-info-on-them.

The stars are wireframes that were made by Christmas Creations (Damien on this forum - see http://www.christmascreations.net.au/). He welded them for me from aluminium so no corrosion. They are about 1.2m (48") wide and I have LEDs clipped to each of the 4 concentric stars. White on the centre one, white & blue on the 2nd, white and green on the 3rd and white and red on the outer star. This gives 7 controlable channels/star. The stars are mounted at the top of 50mm (2") pvc piping with 8 segments of clear minis wrapped around the pipe. The poles are about 2.7 and 3.3m tall. I use separate LOR channels for the two stars on the front street, but the other 2 star assemblies facing the other street are run in parallel to minimize my channel count.

Hope this helps - Geoff

 

[Steve22537]

Thanks Geoff, very helpful will put them on my shopping list.

 

[aussiexmas]

Finally managed to upload the rest of my videos (only another 3)
Vouceover Introduction:
2010 Sinnamon Lights- Voice Introduction

Chicken Dance:
2010 Sinnamon Lights - Chicken Dance -

and an Animation sequence with the music Joy to the World added - Note this looks synchronized in parts, but there was no reference to the music during the sequencing.
2010 Sinnamon Lights - Joy to the World Animation

Any comments would be welcome
Regards Geoff