hello guys i need help or idea of my mega tree. My mega tree is 16ft.tall the base is 4ft around. my lights are not working out with my mega tree i have 5 channels of white and 5 channels of green and 6 channel of blue. What is the easyist way too space out 3 colors. Do i make my base bigger or smaller. i useing 100 set of each color. Do i take all 3 colors and go too the top of tree than come down. im trying too put about 7000 light on here thank u
Here is an article I wrote and posted on ConstantlyChristmas:
LOR Sequencing Shortcuts for Mega and Mini trees
There is no denying that sequencing music with the Light O Rama sequence editor is a time consuming project. Also, that arguably the most talked about “new” idea for things to do/make for one’s Christmas light display this year are the “Leaping Lights”. These two things were the inspiration for me to save some perspiration. I had been thinking to save time and money (in controllers) wouldn’t it be great if one could use the same channels of a controller to control both a mega-tree and some leaping lights sharing the same channels. Since I had neither last year (my first!), and had several songs done for the coming year already- I decided, on a hunch, to try my mini-tree patterns in the mega-tree channels. I had put a ton of time in trying to perfect them and I certainly wouldn’t be out much if they didn’t work out and look respectable.
The first step was to lay out my “new” mega-tree design (I’m confident one could reverse this process if you were going from mega to mini tree, also). I patterned my mega-tree after Richard Holdman’s design that I had seen on his website. He also has posted a terrific pattern which fades around the tree which I’ll include later in this article. I chose “white” as my dominate color and divided up a circle every 22.5 degrees. I know some of you are saying – “wait 360 divided by 8 is 45” well the beauty of it is the lines go thru the center of the circle – so 0 degrees is the same as 180 degrees, etc. This cuts the number of channels dramatically, if you can live with fewer lights per channel – you still need to pay attention to your total watts!
I have numbered the White channels around my channel configuration. Note Ch 1 is 0 (& 360) and 180 degrees, 2 is 22.5 and 202.5 degrees… up to Ch 8 157.5 and 337.5 degrees. For Green and Red, I cut the channels in half by doing Ch 1-4 in the lower left hand corner, then extending through the center to the upper right hand corner; then repeating Ch 1-4 in the lower right hand corner, counter clockwise, to the upper left hand corner. If you’re are still having problems “visualizing” this, draw a circle and draw 8 lines through the center every 22.5 degrees for the White or your dominate color. Then do the same for Red or Green, but on these there going to be about every 18 degrees and repeat in every quadrant. As with all of your lighting projects you can “load up” the number of lights, but pay attention to the total wattage especially on the Red and Green channels, in my case, because you are doubling the lights/channel. Of course, one could devout many more channels to your mega tree; my goal was to have one 16 channel controller to run the tree (if you already have your tree, controller, etc. – I believe this technique would still work well - just cut-n-paste to fill up what you have). Initially, I had a leaping arch drawn in too, but it just didn’t look right with some on the things I had going on in the mega tree, so I dropped it. Plus, I personally think the arches look their best when used sparing to “Wow” the crowd like strobes. Also, if one is “On” the booth are “On”. Sooo, I at least, will wait awhile to do my leaping arches… Not to mention space considerations….
The next thing I did was to take my mini tree sequences and copy and pasted them in the mega tree channels then run your show. If you’re happy with the results - terrific, if not you may want to experiment by adding or deleting certain aspects of your show. Overall, I was extremely happy with the songs I’ve done this to and have saved a ton of time in sequencing “new” patterns into my display. Since you are using the patterns in a totally different way it gives you a totally different look! I am by no means an expert on sequencing; as I said – this is only my second year; however, of the many people I asked about this idea, no one had heard of it before, so I thought I’d share it with you. Please let me know what you think of it or any other ideas you may have along these lines.
Sorry, my graphic didn't come thru. Also, you could use 4 channels of three colors if you run then "thru the tree" and go every 22.5 degrees! Finally, as I mention the Mega and min seqs look very good when used for each other, saving sequencing time!
PM me if you need more help
Last edited on Sun Aug 17th, 2008 06:48 pm by tboerjan
thank u guys 4 helping me . But with that pie of the mega tree will slice1 be white and bule and green and slice 2 be the same. will i use all the colors in each slice too make up a 16 channel mega tree with 5 inchs of spacing than channels2.
You only "need" four channels for each color, then double them each up. Go ch 1-4 thru your tree that covers two diagonal quadrants, repeat in next quarter running lines up and over for the final "8" . That gives 16 channels from top to bottom, granted you have 2 channels of 4. This simplifies your programming and saves channels and cords, lights, time, etc. If this still makes no sense to you, draw a circle, draw 8 lines equally space thru the center, label them a,b,c,d repeat 3 more times. You'll have 4 ch. of four. Repeat for each of the other colors. Your tree will fill in. Use short drop cords to run from one of the a,b,c,d male ends to the other a,b,c,d male ends of the same color. Now both groups of "eight" will be together. I used two ten foot pvc for mine which with three colors gave me about a six inch spacing at the base (white, red, green) and a 7 foot diameter.
Last edited on Mon Aug 18th, 2008 01:05 am by tboerjan
