Last night I put my newly laid Leaping Arch plans into action. I made several changes, some of which I mentioned in the previous post, but I will recap them here.
The Arches are made from 10′ sections of 3/4″ PVC electrical conduit (as opposed to the 1/2″ I was going to use). The main reason behind moving up one size is so that I could insert a piece of 1/2″ metal conduit inside the PVC conduit. When attempting to wrap the test arch on the 1/2″ conduit, it became quite flexible and unmanageable once a few strings of lights were on it. It was difficult to twist, and towards the end I was actually rotating the lights rather than the conduit. It didn’t make for an enjoyable experience. With the 3/4″ conduit that has a 10′ length of 1/2″ metal conduit, the entire unit becomes quite rigid and manageable.
I also decided to use 7 channels per arch rather than 6. 6 would have been nice because 4 arches would have only used one controller, but the more I watched arch videos the more I liked having the odd number of channels. With 7 channels, and 4″ of blank space to keep the lights out of the grass and snow at each end, each channel ended up being 16″. Wrapping a 100 count string (24.7′ according to the box) tightly, but not too tightly, worked out to almost exactly 16″.
We (being the wife and I) decided to scrap the two color arch idea and use the channels to have more arches. I think the “awe per channel” (yes I made that up) factor is much higher with more arches vs. more colors.
I wasn’t in the mood to sit on the floor and wrap arches last night, so I set up an arch wrapping rig in front of the TV here in the basement. The rig consisted of a small ladder and a chair. The ladder held one end of the arch while the chair held the other. To each, I attached a 1 1/4″ PVC coupler with wire ties. The coupler received the 3/4″ conduit and kept it in place as it was rotated to wrap the lights. Once I got into a rhythm, I was able to do a channel about every 10 minutes.
One thing that helped speed up the process is that I elected not to extend the plugs by cutting off the end after each channel was wrapped and soldering in a piece of SPT2 to extend the plug to the end of the arch. The main deciding factor in doing this was that everyone was in bed, and the heat gun that I have for shrinking shrink tube is rather noisy. In addition it allowed me to actually finish the arch last night, whereas if I was constantly stopping to cut off ends and solder them back on, I probably wouldn’t have gotten done. Another plus to doing it this way, is that if a string goes bad, it should be easier to replace. The plan right now is to make up extension cords with the SPT2 and just wire tie them to the underside of the arch where they won’t be seen very much.
One modification that I needed to make to the system, was to take a plastic lid from a deli container and cut a hole in it to slip over the end of the conduit. This was to keep the lights closest to the ladder (the first channel I wrapped) from catching on it and either holding up progress or damaging the lights.
I would have actually gotten done in time to post this last night except as I was completing like the 2nd or 3rd strand, I got to the end and the wire going from the plug to the first socket came out of the socket. I had to pull out the contact and try and get the wire reattached. It didn’t want to crimp, so I got out the soldering gun and tried to solder it. As you can see from the picture, it wasn’t the most attractive joint, but it seemed to get the job done. Had I been here at my work area, I think I could have done a better job, but on the spot repairs in front of the TV, while trying to keep solder off the rug, doesn’t lend themselves to nice looking joints. I don’t think the wire came out because I was wrapping them too tightly. I think it was just that way from the factory.
Tonight I’ve been playing around with sequencing. I created a new Vixen sequence with actual music (Standing In Motion by Yanni) and have been messing with different arch effects in time to the song. If anything it has reinforced the fact that it is going to take FOREVER to sequence the songs and I’d better be finalizing everything soon and start sequencing at least by the end of June. I also need to play to see what types of effects look best and which don’t.
I’ll try to get some video of the two arches in action (I still have the 6 channel arch assembled) if I have a chance tomorrow.
Posted in Miscellaneous |
