Striking the Show

Tearing down seymour lights isn't quite as much work as setting up, but it's still a chore.

This mess has all been sorted out, wound up and packed away now. It was not a lot of fun, however.


Yech...

It's also a bit of a challenge to tear down the big tree. We have a simple crane type apparatus that goes into the hitch receiver on a truck. We used it to take down the star and top two sections of the tree.

Thanks for a fantastic season!!

Teardown begins today. Thanks so very much to all those who came by to see the 2008 display. We have big plans for 2009 and we will be back with some major changes to the display.

I have posted some videos from this season's show on the video page and will post a couple more in the next week or so.

Thanks again for making 2008 a great year for Seymour Lights. Happy New Year!

Planning for 2009

Well, we are in the final week of the 2008 display and it's time to think about next season. I am thinking of adding a couple of elements to the show next season.

The first element will be LPG flame projectors. I may be making these myself or ordering them a source in China.

Here's an example of what I am talking about:

Now that the big tree is reliable (rebuilt it for this season from steel tubing) it's time to think of ways to take it to the next level. One thing I am considering is a layer of individually controllable LED modules so I can 'project' simple video elements on the surface of the tree. Here's a video from someone who is experimenting with this this year..

The other things I am planning to do are focused on improving existing elements of the show or generally making it easier to set up the display.

1. Create 'wiring harnesses' as I take the display down this year. This should cut a little time from setup next season.

2. Definitely will need more foggers next season and better weather/temperature control for the lasers...

3. Need to put MUCH more time into my sequencing next season to give the show much more of cohesive feel and much more professional and polished.

Keeping the Lasers Warm

Well, the lasers haven't debuted in this season's display yet due to a complication I should have foreseen. One of the things about Laser Diodes is that they lose a lot of power when the operating temperature falls below design specs. That means about 50 degrees fahrenheit...

So... I built some insulated cases for them. The larger one is my RGB laser and the two smaller ones are the green lasers.

The boxes are not the prettiest thing, but in 17 degree temperature last night, they stayed a toasty 60 degrees inside. They are made from 1x3 stock and luan, with foam insulation. The window is special anti-reflective glass so as not to lose laser power.

Inside are small enclosure heaters I picked up on eBay.. they have a built in thermistor and will not exceed 65 degrees.

Wires, Wires and more Wires

I haven't posted any setup updates since last week, but I have been working all day every day. Most of my work lately has been in wiring... connecting all of the individual elements of the show to the LightORama controllers that make them dance to the music.

For example, controller 1 is located on the roof and controls 15 snowflakes on the front of the house and the nativity set in the side yard. (each controller has 16 channels or circuits than can turn on and off, fade, shimmer, twinkle, etc.)

Controller 2 controls the lights in the garland on the house (5 colors) the lights on the shrubs (5 colors) and the lights on the wreath/video screen (5 colors). Channel 16 activates the strobes spread throughout the display. You can also see the projector in the window that powers the video screen. That big lens is a short throw lens so the wreath/video screen can stay close to the house.








Controllers 3, 4 and 5 control the large tree and the medium trees in the front yard, the big tree has four sections with five colors each (20 channels) the three sided star (3 channels) and the Sunray fixture in the center of the star (1 channel). I also used a spare channel to turn the nativity star on and off separately from the rest of the figures.












Controller 6 controls the 16 candy canes along the front of the display.

And now for the controller hog, the new bellagio fountain..controllers 7,8,9 and 10 control the leaping lights arches and the side jets of the fountain. (controllers 11,12,13,14,15,16 handle the 12 jets in the center of the fountain). This beast uses 160 channels all together.

Still setting up

A couple of projects tonight; stands for the controllers and some snowflakes that will be on the house.

First, I built some simple stands to keep the controllers up off the ground so the connections won't be on the wet ground. Just treated 2x6's... pretty simple..





Then it was on to the snowflakes. After scouring the stores last year after Christmas I was still 8 snowflakes short to do the front of the house as I was planning. So, I had Gregg Jones weld some up for me. There were 4 36" flakes and four smaller ones.



Got those all finished and ready to go.


Ok, time to catch some shuteye.

Setup Continues

Well, last evening we managed to get the star installed on the big tree. It was a little scary, but went fine.



It doesn't look as huge on top of the 22 foot tree as it did sitting on the patio.



I also got a good start on setting up the mini Bellagio fountain display. I still have to install the tee's on the tops of the circular portion and tie them together, then install the other leaping lights on the backside, then tons of wiring to do.