It's About Time!
Welcome to your February 2007
edition of the PlanetChristmas
newsletter! It is published almost every month and covers relative topics
for the Christmas decorating enthusiast.
__________
In this issue of the
PlanetChristmas
newsletter:
What Are Megatrees?
If
you frequent the PlanetChristmas
chatroom
then you will know there have been a ton of post about these mega-trees and it
can be a bit confusing. There are really only two basic types of mega-trees, one
that goes all the way to the ground and the other is a tree with a trunk (as
seen in picture to the left.) They seem to be as small as 6’ and over 100’ tall.
A short definition of mega is as follows; “great, extended, powerful.” In
my personal humble opinion a mega-tree starts at 20’ and goes up from there.
Getting started
Okay, to get started we need to know how high we want to build it. Once we
know how high we can easily figure out the diameter of the bottom.
Diameter is figured by dividing the height by two. So for this newsletter
we will be talking about a 20’ tree. If you follow these guidelines you can
apply it to almost any size tree. For a 20’ tree we will need a 10’ base
(20'/2=10').
The Base
There are two ways to build a tree, one is having the lights go all the way to
the ground and attached to a ring or build a base that will give your tree the
shape with a trunk and/or a skirt. If you would like for your lights to go
all the way to the ground, this is the simplest way. You can go buy some
gray electrical PVC pipe at Lowes or Home Depot.
Now we need to do the math. If you are not good at math open up your the
calculator on your computer, click on the view tab and select “scientific”, this
will give you more options on your calculator. I am going to show you how to
figure the amount of PVC pipe you will need to get a 10’ diameter. The
area around the circle is called the circumference. To find the
circumference, enter you diameter (10') and then multiply it by Pi (3.1416).
You should get the figure 31.42. This number represents the number of feet
in PVC pipe that you will need. Since PVC pipe comes in 10’ lengths we can round
the number down to 30’ and use three lengths of gray PVC pipe. I recommend 3/4"
or 1" pipe. When you get your electrical gray PVC you will notice that it
is really flexible and has a built in coupling. Now connect the PVC end to end
and you will have a nice complete circle with a diameter to match the height of
the tree. To hold this down on the ground you can make some U shaped anchors out
of ¼” rod to drive in the ground. This is important otherwise the wind will
blow your strings and possibly get them tangled. Once the ring is secure, you
can run your strings from the top of your tree to the bottom, space them out
accordingly and tie them down using a zip tie. I recommend that you look for 5"
reusable ties. From my experience they can be removed much quicker then regular
ones that have to be cut off and you can reuse these next year, plus they have
UV protection built in. Now if you want to build a base to hold all the lights
in the shape of a tree with a trunk you can
click here for some free plans.
Center Support Pole
What
you will use depends on your budget. Some have used wood, galvanized pipe,
PVC pipe or a flag pole. Whatever you use needs to be set in concrete.
Right off the bat I want to say, using PVC for 20’ or higher is looking for
disaster. Once you get past 15’ in the air, everything changes. Your
PVC becomes more wobbly and the wind can be more fierce. My first year
building a mega tree, I used a telescopic flag pole from Sunsetter Flag Poles.
It was a 20’ pole. The drawback to a telescopic flag pole is that it gets
smaller at the top. Think of it as the telescopic antenna that pulls off a
radio. The top piece is the section that always breaks off. The telescopic flag
pole is not that weak, but it is the weakest where you need the most strength.
It will work, but you are limited to the number of light strings you can use
because of the total weight. I used 128 strings of 100 mini lights
(lighted length 33’) on my first year tree using a telescopic pole and it was
too much weight for the top segment to handle. Your average 100 mini
string weighs about 1 pound, so that totals 128 pounds pulling down on the top
section. All that weight caused the top section to slightly show a bend.
To resolve this problem we lowered that segment about three feet into the
section just below the top section.
In the picture at the top, Wayne Kremer used 1.5” (2” OD) galvanized pipe. He
put a 3” nipple cemented in the ground. You can read in detail how he built his
at his
website.
The most important thing is to guy wire the center pole. Some have used
three guy wires and others have used four. I say the more the better.
After my experience with extremely high winds in 2005, I feel like somewhat of
an expert now. We had high gusts of wind come through and destroyed most
of our display three days before the show started. We got everything back
up and got even worse winds the next day. You would have thought we were
safe and this should not happen again, but the winds came a week later and were
the worst ever, but this time we beat the wind. So that is why I say you
cannot have too many tie downs. If you get lazy and try to take the short
cuts, you will have problems. So a little extra work is like insurance and
will help you sleep better at night. I personally use four guy wires.
Even more important than guy wires are the stakes that hold them into the
ground. The stakes need to at least be 18” long. I personally try to go 24” or
deeper. There is no such thing as overkill.
The Tree Topper
The
tree topper is what holds the light strings. I made mine using a bun foot
(round piece of wood), metal floor flange and a piece of 1.25” pipe, you can see
the details by
clicking here. Since Wayne K. used 1.5” galvanized pipe he was able to
screw the metal flange on to the top end of the pipe.
How Many Lights
The
amount of lights comes down to preference, power and/or budget. I prefer
to have as many lights as possible. You can never have too many, but as a
general rule I like my lights to be spaced 3" to 4" (I recommend not going over
6" in spacing) apart. To figure how many lights I want on my tree, I take the
circumference of the circle, which we figured out earlier by multiplying the
diameter times Pi (3.14159). Earlier we came up with just over 31' and decided
to reduce it to 30' since we could use three - 10' lengths of gray PVC pipe. Now
let's take 30 (feet) x 12 (inches) = 360 (inches), then divide that number by 3
(inches) (our desired spacing) and we come up with 120 light strings.
Computer Control
If you are going to hook this tree up using computer control (light
controller) this can also affect how many lights you will have, so we will have
to either round up or down the figure we came up with (120 sets of mini lights)
earlier. First we need to figure up how many amps we are going to be pulling.
Mini lights can pull anywhere from 0.22 to 0.42 amps. I will use an
average figure, lets say 0.32 amps. So 0.32 amps x 120 = 38.4 amps. This
tells me that I can get away with one light controller if I wanted too, but I
think I am going to use two light controllers, because if I use 16 channels,
then one channel (slice of the pie) will be 22.5" wide. I came up with this
figure by dividing 120 (mini light set) by 3" (spacing between lights). There is
really nothing wrong with that width except that I cannot make that channel
width smaller if I wanted too. In this case I will go with 32 channels and my
width will be half of that. 11.25. But now this averages 3.75 light strings per
channel. This is not going to work so it looks like we will round it up to four
light strings per channel which will give us 128 light strings total when we
multiply 4 (strings) x 32 (channels).
The
World's Biggest Christmas (Mega)Tree
Indianapolis, Indiana. claimed to have the world's biggest Christmas tree in
2007. They use a monument that was 284' tall. Supposedly it is 15' shorter then
the statue of Liberty. I would have liked this tree better if they used a
center pole rather then a statue. The biggest I built is a 40' tree.
Click here to see the video.
Click here
to see the
You Tube
Video.
Suggestions
If you are going to start with a 30' or higher tree and have never done any
type of tree I highly recommend that you start with a 20' or less to get some
experience. I was a little naive with my first tree. I used 10" anchors in
soft ground and got lucky one night and walked out just as the wind pulled one
out. Another thing about the wind...it does not sleep. The Mega tree is
the central piece in your display, please don't try to take short cuts, it will
ruin your Christmas and disappoint the people that come to see your show.
Good Luck and if you have any questions please
email me, Darryl Brown.
A special thanks to Darryl Brown for submitting this story for our
newsletter.
Anthony Vetrano also has a great Megatree calculator.
Click here if you have Microsoft Excel
Is this the year you're going to computerize the Christmas
display? Now is the time to be figuring out the hardware and software.
Order enough stuff from the vendors to get started playing with your new toys
now. Start by ordering a 4-8-16 channel light controller kit or
preassembled board as well as the control software. Do it now while things
are slow and some of the vendors are running sales. Spend the next month
getting a very small system working and master how you control the lights with
the software. Contrary to anything you might think, making the jump to a
computerized display is a big event. Give yourself plenty of time to
master the basics. Check with the vendors to see if they have any classes
close to you. Per the
PlanetChristmas
chatroom, Animated Lighting is having a class in Orlando, Florida March
6-7, 2007.
Once you understand how everything fits together in the
computer control world, you can order more light controller boards a little
closer to Christmas. Bottom line: crawl, walk, run. Make 2007
your year to crawl!
Our community has experienced tremendous
growth. With so many of us, it's easy to misinterpret what's going on.
Our three fundamental rules of family friendly, positive and Christmas centric
guide what we say and do. The real key to our community is a willingness
to exchange information so others can have better displays.
Our bi-annual gathering is moving ahead and
we're nailing down the final details on the wide range of educational classes
being offered. If you've been to PLUS before, prepare for different
classes with new instructors. If you've never been to PLUS, well, why not?
It's the perfect place to share ideas and get inspiration for your 2007 display.
We're very lucky to have our very own Marty
Slack teaching the Light-O-Rama classes. Marty won the PlanetChristmas
2005 Worldwide Decorating Contest and he was the 2006 Light-O-Rama grand prize
winner. You probably saw him on TV during this last Christmas. Marty
brings a wealth of knowledge and is eager to share it with the newbies as well
as the old-timers.
Our vendor list continues to grow as the
industry finds out about this premier event. If you know of a vendor that
really needs to be at PLUS, we only have 500 square feet of space left, so send
me an email ASAP so we can contact your suggestion.
PLUS2007 is in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, August 2-4,
2007. The
www.PLUS2007.com website is now online and accepting
registrations for the event. Here's a hint: there's a special
discount coupon on the front page of the website. Use it now before it
expires.
If you attended either of our major
PlanetChristmas
Lights Up Symposium (PLUS) events, you know a great time is in store.
There is plenty being taught by the experts, but you also discover so much more
sharing information with other enthusiasts and also talking directly to our
vendors. The key to success for PLUS2007 is the continued growth of
the PlanetChristmas
community.
Talking about a gold mine
of information, this is the place! If you haven't found it yet, go to
http://www.planetchristmas.com/talk.htm. We've
recently added more forums and made it a little easier to get around. Once
you're a member, feel free to change the look and feel of the chatroom by going
to "My Account/Preferences/Board Theme." Don't forget to update your
profile so others can learn about your display. Also remember the part of
the chatroom you can see when not logged in is indexed by the Internet search
engines, but once you're a registered member, many new forums open up but are
invisible to the search engines. PlanetChristmas
believes strongly in protecting your privacy.
The PlanetChristmas
radio station is still on-line and available to anyone with
a fast Internet connection to tap into. Christmas music 24x7... even in
the middle of Winter. How can you go wrong? Find the retails at
http://www.planetchristmas.com/PCRadio2006.htm
Have a suggestion for a main topic or want to write an
article for a future PlanetChristmas
newsletter? Send me an email: csmith@planetchristmas.com
If you know someone that really should subscribe to your newsletter, send them
to
http://planetchristmas.com/lists/?p=subscribe
Next time: look forward to more Christmas
decorating tips.
Chuck Smith of
PlanetChristmas
