Sinnamon Lights 2012

[aussiexmas]

I finally got around to uploading some 2012 videos.
Queen of the Winter Night - Sinnamon Lights 2012

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-md-Hft65Y


Six White Boomers - Sinnamon Lights 2012

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4f70w7Sqg


You can see all the uploads from http://www.youtube.c...iexmas43/videos including previous years.

This year my Sinnamon Lights show ran as a continuous 24 minute loop. Crowds were bigger than ever and some visitors even arrived with their own chairs and picnic rugs to sit on the opposite footpaths. Some sat and watched for an hour or more and even returned on other nights. Highlights included:

• One engagement that I know of,
• A couple of kindy aged girls had a beautiful prepared speech, and presented me with a lovely bottle of red,
• My grand daughters baked cookies and sold them for charity donations
• The local Rotary Santa sleigh which tours the local neighbourhood was waylaid for about an hour and a half by the children at the display,
• etc etc.

This year the display won the "Best synchronised music & lights" category in the 4KQ Brisbane Christmas lights competition.

 

[kane]

Absolutely brilliant as always Geoff. You set the bar very high!

Quite funny, I had a couple people say that my lights were the best ever.. My 6yo daughter corrected them and said no way, they're nowhere near as good as Geoff's!!

 

[Skunberg]

Wow! Great display, great timing! How big are those fans?
And can I get any details on the two stars on top of the poles?
I saw something simular with a barn star and C9s. I have a triple coro star on the way and planning to plugin a bunch of pixels. Your version looks much better and maybe a daytime picture would help me see layout and count?
Thank's again for such a beautiful display!!!

Brian

 

[ThaiWay]

Agreed! Incredibly brilliant! Those star poles, the fans, the white intensity... it all works. I could almost feel the rumble at 1:56 in Queen! Thanks for sharing.

 

[jcmarksafb]

Great job! Wonderful timing and very creative. I like the fact that you seem to use manual effects vs. computer generated effects. Something to aspire to.

 

[fasteddy]

As always Geoff well worth the wait and another brilliant job.

 

[Bird]

As always Geoff well worth the wait and another brilliant job.

What Eddy said.
I have been waiting to see yours.

 

[Christmas on Clarafield]

Another great effort Geoff and well worth the wait. You continue to set the benchmark for animated displays.

 

[AAH]

Absolutely amazing work as usual Geoff. Your display proves to the doubters that believe LOR can't do RGB that it can be done and done amazingly well. I truly wish that I could do a display 1/10th as good as that or even half as well synched as that. After watching what you've done with Queen of the Winter Night I've gotta wonder whether I should add another TSO song this year.
There is no doubt that you are well deserving of the 4KQ win as it is gorgeous work.

 

[Jim]

I was up in Brisbane for a funeral in Mid Dec but made a point of visiting your display with the relatives I was staying with. I was impressed and appreciated the work involved at all levels. My relo's however were totally amazed and couldn't stop asking questions on how different aspects of the display "worked".....


Very well done !!!!


Jim...

 

[aussiexmas]

Wow! Great display, great timing! How big are those fans?
And can I get any details on the two stars on top of the poles?
I saw something simular with a barn star and C9s. I have a triple coro star on the way and planning to plugin a bunch of pixels. Your version looks much better and maybe a daytime picture would help me see layout and count?
Thank's again for such a beautiful display!!!

Brian

Brian
Arch fans are approx 2.3m radius on the left street & 1.8m radius on the right hand street. Each spoke is a 2m segment of low voltage Big W LEDs. There are 40 spokes, 10 each of red, green, blue & warm white. All spokes of each colour are connected together.


Regarding my stars, they are wireframes I had made in Australia, but the original ideas were based on firework stars developed by Joe Noe (I think) from Planet Christmas. Last time I checked, the original links were no longer active. For 2009, I modified his ideas and for 2011 added starburst effects using RGB modules. see pics. First 3 pics are 2010 prior to adding the starbursts. Last 2 are close ups of the added RGB modules. Some details: My stars are about 4 ft across. 7 sets of LED lights on each, Inner star - 40 cool white LEDs 2nd star. 40 white and 40 blue LEDs separate circuits, inside & outside respectively, 3rd star 80 white & 80 green LEDs separate circuits, inside & outside respectively, 4th star 120 white & 120 red LEDs separate circuits, inside & outside respectively, The stars are U-bolted and cable tied to a short length of 1.5" PVC pipe which slips into the larger 2" PVC used for the pole. These are bolted to prevent rotation. The stars are mounted on 2" PVC piping, 9' & 11' tall respectively. The poles sit over a short vertical antennae mount and are again bolted to prevent rotation. Nylon ropes are used as guys for stability as per photos. The star wireframes are welded aluminium rod (no corrosion) and cost ~$45USD each, but this may have been a special price as a first off trial. The clips were supplied by the frame maker to suit the LED lights that he supplies. (NB our light prices in Australia are typically higher than the US and are almost all low voltage, thus include a dropping transformer 240->24V typically) Most of my LEDs are run from DC LOR boards with suitable DC power supplies. The stars are connected in pairs - the 2 higher ones closest to the house corner are connected to run identical patterns as are the other 2 fartherest from the corner. (Being on a corner, I try to run the same patterns on each frontage and thus minimize the LOR channel count.) For 2011 I have added some starburst effects to the two inner stars using dumb RGB modules. On each of the rays, there are 3 segments comprising 3, then 2, then 2 RGB modules attached to 20mm PVC. At each radius, the 9/10 segments are wired together and these combined segments are controlled as 3 RGB channels. To get the end effects, I used 4 RGB modules as per the pics. These crosses are wired to 2 RGB channels (All star points on 1 channel and others on a second channel). This construction worked well, but was heavier than expected and I had concerns about their performance in strong winds. Luckily for 2011 & again in 2012, we had no strong storms. Hope this helps - Geoff Harvey

 

[AAH]

How many channels are you running Geoff? Way back in the days of the aussielor forums I asked expecting it to be >2k then but you're a sneaky bugger and have some of the display mirrored so it wasn't that high then.

 

[aussiexmas]

AAH

You are correct, I do mirror many display elements on the 2 street frontages by hard wiring them to the same controller channels; eg minitrees, bushes, arches, arch fans, eaves icicles, firework stars. I also use relays to maintain the availability of the 2 separate channels for twinkling purposes in Big W and similar 2 channel strings, while only using a single channel for each string on the megatree, eaves icicles, bushes, and roof trees. (In each of these cases there is a channel used for relay activation also).
My 2012 channel count was:

Sequence​	Total channels​	AC 240V​	DC​	CCR​
Main Sequences​	652​	76​	419​	157​
Background Sequence​	21​	11​	10​
Interactive Sequences​	9​	5​	4​
TOTALS​	682​	92​	433​	157​

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Note - I have 6 CCRs, but they are joined as 3 pairs (end to end) which results in each pixel being 6 RGB LEDS. There are CCR 3 controllers, but I run them all on the same address, hence the 157 channel count for the CCRs (50 RGB pixels + 7 macro channels). The LOR CCR controllers allow 'on the fly' dynamic reconfiguration and I often use the CCRs as a single RGB element (or 10 elements). This significantly reduces the number of channels to be programmed in these instances.

 

[kel]

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[Skunberg]

Great explaination and pictures Geoff!! Your channel usage is a model. Lots of thought has gone into your display and it shows!! Thank you very much!!!

Brian