Using icicles to display text

Kent

Kent

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Nov 21, 2020
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Has anyone used icicles to display scrolling text? How would you rate the effect?

I'm about to buy ~30m worth of icicles for a first year display and am tossing up between alternating drops of 7-5-3 or having each drop at 7 nodes. The choice between the two will depend on if I'd be able to get legible text from having them all at 7. I was thinking of 10cm between drops and 10cm between each node (so ~2100 all up).

Font-wise, allowing 5x7 pixels (50x70cm) for each letter will work OK, but I'm uncertain how well a single point of light every 10cm^2 would look to the eye.

Any photos or videos of attempts people have made at this would be greatly appreciated.
 
I modelled up in Fusion 360 to work out a few constraints I had with my model.
I settled on the spacing in X/Y purely by the size panels I had to go by.
The icicles are not extended to full length.

icicles_fusion360.JPG

Holes are all 12mm, spacing is 101mm * 38mm.
icicles_fusion360_node_spacing.JPG

In the actual spacing is more like 100mm and 38mm.
I made all this by hand, not a machine getting these exact measurements!
icicles_image1.JPG
 
What @Mark_M said. The three 7-* XL fonts were added specifically with Ray's 7-7-7-7 icicles in mind when mounted using Boscoyo's icicle strips. 🙂

Due to the wide drop spacing, narrow width fonts tend to look better, IMO.
 
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FYI, here is an example of how my icicles turned out - super happy with the effect. The video was taken shortly after putting them up, but the effect looks almost as good after a few weeks in the wind.
For mounting, I've used magnets attached to PVC pipe painted blank, drilled every ~90mm with a drop of 7 icicles. The first icicle pokes through the top of the conduit and can still be seen clearly.
Three magnets was enough to just hold up a 5m length, so I doubled that and made it 6 for the 5m length. We had some pretty wild wind over the last week and nothing fell down.

Font used in the video is 7-7x9 Thin.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRmYIR4c4B4
 
Kent said:
FYI, here is an example of how my icicles turned out - super happy with the effect. The video was taken shortly after putting them up, but the effect looks almost as good after a few weeks in the wind.
For mounting, I've used magnets attached to PVC pipe painted blank, drilled every ~90mm with a drop of 7 icicles. The first icicle pokes through the top of the conduit and can still be seen clearly.
Three magnets was enough to just hold up a 5m length, so I doubled that and made it 6 for the 5m length. We had some pretty wild wind over the last week and nothing fell down.

Font used in the video is 7-7x9 Thin.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRmYIR4c4B4
Click to expand...

I find that amazing for pixels just dangling. I wanted to do that, but text was illegible.

So I spent too much time making this coro 'icicle' mount. I refuse to call it a matrix because it's made up of icicle lights!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3pnPMD2zn8
 
Kent said:
FYI, here is an example of how my icicles turned out - super happy with the effect. The video was taken shortly after putting them up, but the effect looks almost as good after a few weeks in the wind.
For mounting, I've used magnets attached to PVC pipe painted blank, drilled every ~90mm with a drop of 7 icicles. The first icicle pokes through the top of the conduit and can still be seen clearly.
Three magnets was enough to just hold up a 5m length, so I doubled that and made it 6 for the 5m length. We had some pretty wild wind over the last week and nothing fell down.

Font used in the video is 7-7x9 Thin.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRmYIR4c4B4
Click to expand...

Kent,

I think this is fantastic would you be open to sharing your parts list, power injection plan and sources?

Merry Christmas

Rog
 
Rog said:
Kent,

I think this is fantastic would you be open to sharing your parts list, power injection plan and sources?

Merry Christmas

Rog
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was planning to do such a thing over the Christmas break. If you're anywhere near Kellyville, feel free to stop in an I can show you. Will drop a link back here once I get a write up done.
 
Kent said:
Yeah, I was planning to do such a thing over the Christmas break. If you're anywhere near Kellyville, feel free to stop in an I can show you. Will drop a link back here once I get a write up done.
Click to expand...

Hey Kent, did you ever get around to writing up something? I'm looking to replace my 1 x 220px gutter line with capacity to scroll some text for this years display. Would love to know how you got the icicles to sit so nicely for text in the video you posted!
 
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