Well, long time no blog. It has been a big 12 months since I last was serious about my Christmas light display. My 2013 display ended up not having any animation to it simply do to running out of time but mainly due to not having a dedicated work space. I have a LOT of soldering to get my elements finished like my mini trees made out of my old LED Kmart strings. I was also hoping to get some RGB strip lighting for the roof outline but this never eventuated either.
So 2013's display was once again static with some old favourites bowing out after many years of service including the candy canes along the path, as well as the net lights on the side fence. It did however see the addition of some new faces in the form of a BRIGHT LED family of reindeer on the lawn, as well as a giant 6ft inflatable Santa. Santa did suffer from some technical issues after some wild December weather made a wire in the blower loose so he was not inflated for a few days, but a quick solder got him back on track.
In May this year the ACL Mini was held in Melbourne and I went along for one of the days to get some ideas and talk to other ACL members about their displays. I walked away with some further knowledge around sequencing the light shows, in particular looking to use Vixen software this year as it seems quite less complicated than Light Show Pro (LSP.)
Today I secured a new addition to the light show, and its a major update too - lengths of RGB LED strip lighting to use along the roof line and possibly guttering too. UI must give a shout out to Rod from Lights On The Ridge, as he has been a great source of knowledge, as well as the seller of the RGB strip (he upgraded to pixels last year.)
So 2013's display was once again static with some old favourites bowing out after many years of service including the candy canes along the path, as well as the net lights on the side fence. It did however see the addition of some new faces in the form of a BRIGHT LED family of reindeer on the lawn, as well as a giant 6ft inflatable Santa. Santa did suffer from some technical issues after some wild December weather made a wire in the blower loose so he was not inflated for a few days, but a quick solder got him back on track.
In May this year the ACL Mini was held in Melbourne and I went along for one of the days to get some ideas and talk to other ACL members about their displays. I walked away with some further knowledge around sequencing the light shows, in particular looking to use Vixen software this year as it seems quite less complicated than Light Show Pro (LSP.)
Today I secured a new addition to the light show, and its a major update too - lengths of RGB LED strip lighting to use along the roof line and possibly guttering too. UI must give a shout out to Rod from Lights On The Ridge, as he has been a great source of knowledge, as well as the seller of the RGB strip (he upgraded to pixels last year.)
The next steps now is to get a suitable power supply to run these, as they are 12V and my current PSU is 30W to drive my Kmart string LEDs. That's right - these colour changing RGB lights that will run the entire length of my roof and can be fully computer controlled only require 12V to power them! Hello lower power bills (that will make Mrs Evans happy I'm sure!) I already have the conduit bought & cut to required lengths, all I need to do is to stick these lengths of strip lights to the conduit and cable tie to the conduit, then attach the conduit to the roof using cable ties & cable tie mounts. What has been suggested is to cover the lights with corrugated plastic or coro for short. Its a white plastic that is similar to cardboard in construction but allows diffused light to pass through it, so you don't get the harshness of each individual LED.
With a new mancave about to commence construction in our backyard, I'm looking forward to next year's display already as I'll finally have a dedicated work space to help my creations come to life!
With a new mancave about to commence construction in our backyard, I'm looking forward to next year's display already as I'll finally have a dedicated work space to help my creations come to life!