spiral tree layout and hooking up

[confinisher67]

Im new to christmas forums of any kind this year, and actually anything electrical other than changing a light switch or pluggin.
This is our 1st year really getting into lights, trying to get a understanding and information.We really want to put up a spiral tree next year, and coming from not quite grasping all of the technical stuff having to do with lights and controllers, it looks like im gonna need to build a mini version in the garage this summer and figure out how to controll it. rgb pixel would be great but it sounds so technical think were gonna go basic 1st year with it.
Im looking for a blueprint type layout of lights and hooking up to lor i guess. I picture lor controller as over glorified light switch that hooks up to a computer. now I see where people have multiple color strands wrapped together. i thought it would be let say ya had 48 spiral strands, twisting 2 strands to make 1so more dense, so 96 strands going one way and same going opposite way. so 48 spinning each direction, 1 color going 1 direction and another color going the other direction. is that kinda how it works? i would love a blueprint on how its done and hooked up to the lore controllers. to have a basic model to make a mini test tree over summer.

 

[AAH]

Welcome to acl. I'm also looking at building a spiral mega tree for next year. I've been using a standard style mega tree for about 5 years now. The spiral trees look amazing but they involve framing to hold the actual spiral. A couple things you need to be aware of and may get a surprise if you wait till late next year. I think all the lor controllers are 16 channels so you're talking a number of controllers just for your tree. The dmx controlled DC48 by David_AVD is what I'm using for my tree this year under control of lor. The other thing is that lor are horribly unreliable at deliveries in the last 1/4 of the year. If you want to get lor controllers you need to at least order them by September. With you being in the US you at least are a lot closer to the source than those of us down under. There are a few guides around for building the trees and and I'm sure Eddy or others will point you to them.

 

[Boof63]

hi saw this on U tube How to make a Spiral Tree its a a video of a chap who built one out of pvc pipe , quite straight forward and he gives details of construction. best of luck
cheers boof63

 

[fasteddy]

Welcome to ACL, What seems very technical now will become much easier to understand. We have many members who had no clue when they joined up earlier in the year and have now put together some very nice displays and some very nice trees. So dont be afraid to ask questions and pop into the chat room to get some advice.

I have a 2 metre spiral tree i have built for my display which has 200 pixels, its a simple build as all ive used was a spiral tree bought from deals direct for $65 and then i removed the rope light and then attached 100 pixels to each spiral (this tree is a dual spiral) I will have some video of this over the weekend. But you are able to get some great effects with this pixel spiral tree and it really isnt that hard to build and may be a great way to learn with as it can be done easily in your garage.

 

[confinisher67]

thank you for the welcomes and replies, i do like the idea of a message on the roof in your display, my roof looks like it needs something, just a big dark spot.
that video of the spiral tree ive watched at least 3 times,it looks like he mixes the different colors into 1 strand on each run. it kinda confused the way i pictured it in my mind.what made me want to make one of these is this video on youtube 26' BLUE LED SPIRAL MEGA-TREE
lights are such big investment unless id like to just buy rgb pixel lights so as to not have to find a place to put 9000 blue, red or green lights when i finally grasp getting this stuff.id like to just invest in 1 kinda light that i can just keep on adding to rather than finding somethin to do with my old strings. lots of the peeps on these forums sound like electrical engineers. im good with my hands...its just the mind doesnt seem to be able to catch up. if i had a schematic that was in laymans terms i could make it.
ive been wondering if you could take single strands of pixels to wrap the tree in a spiral each 1 have a small power supply and a small wireless sub controller being controlled by the main dmx controller for color changes,fades and patterns while the small individual subs being plugged into the lor controller for the turning on and off for the spinning effect. that way the tree can be whatever color ya want.
anyone know if this is possible?

 

[kmccamman]

I wanted to say thanks for sharing this! I built one just like it at around 8 feet tall in about half an afternoon and bench tested the lights. It turned out great!

Kelly