Lights
Christmas Lights!
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The Changing Light of Christmas Future
Christmas decorating is something that we all enjoy doing. Well, most of us enjoy it at some point or another. The long hours, the tedious time sequencing, setting up the display, fixing lights that stop working… Okay, somewhere in there is the enjoyment. After all, it’s why we do it right? But lately, there is has been a large change in lighting and it needs to be addressed. This is the pixel and RGB lighting. What are Pixels and RGB? Pixels and RGB lighting are something that really aren’t new but is to the decorating community. With these lights, I…
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Creating the ultimate Christmas display
PlanetChristmas Magazine has featured in the past, “Over the Top” displays, all of which, I have admired. There have been articles written for newbie’s and getting them pointed in the right direction, topics on planning, and executing a display, and even discussions on various display elements. However, one concept has not been talked about directly, what truly makes a display something magical, special or unique. What is it that creates a buzz about what you do? What gets everyone talking about YOUR display? What puts your display on the “Bucket List of Christmas Celebrations?” I refer to this as the…
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10 ways to get into the Christmas business
This is the time of year when some of us start thinking about how we can make money getting into the Christmas business. It’s got to be easy, right? Christmas expenditures are over $465,000,000,000 (that’s 465 Billion dollars) per year according to market studies. It includes decorations, gifts, food, and about anything Christmas related you can think of. No matter how you look at Christmas, there’s a huge amount of money being spent. Rather than spending money during the holidays, it might make sense to consider taking advantage of the season and making money. The good news is there are…
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I was on ABC’s Great Christmas Light Fight
Now that everything is put away, the dust has settled, and the check is cashed, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share our experience with the ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight, in hopes that those of you who may be sitting on the fence about applying will take the leap and participate in Season 2. Our family and our display, “Christmas in the Grove” were the winners of Episode 4. When It All Started We were contacted in Dec 2012 by a production company that was putting the show together. I guess someone scoured the light finder…
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Build a pixel tree
If you haven’t figured it out yet, all the articles in this issue of PlanetChristmas Magazine have been leading us to building our own pixel based megatree. We’ll readily admit it’s not as easy as it needs to be, but the results are so worth it. Just look at the cover of our magazine and imagine the light patterns in a fluid movement. Our goal is to build a tree that’s two meters tall (a little over six feet), have 12 vertical legs and each leg will use 60 pixels/meter pixel ribbons. With the help of a calculator we figured…
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Talking to the pixels
OMG This has geekfest written all over it. The PlanetChristmas Magazine staff was told to build a pixel tree. As the whiteboard filled up with things to figure out, one item was circled in red and my name was written next to it: How do we control the pixels? I was told to become an expert in pixel communication. That’s when Chuck Smith edged into the room, read the to-do list and said “keep the geekiness to an absolute minimum when writing about it. My mother is going to build one of these things.” Easy for him to say as…
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Pixel ribbons
We were sitting around the conference table when Chuck (as in The Mr. Smith) said we’re building pixel trees for the next edition of the magazine. What’s a pixel tree? Think along the lines of a megatree, but every light is controllable. As Mr. Smith likes to say: any light, any color, any time. These are the trees that have moving patterns on them, can scroll pictures or text and truly wow your audience. Light-O-Rama came out with something called the Cosmic Color Ribbon in 2009. The ribbon had 150 RGB based LEDs evenly spread across a five meter (16.4…
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5 Volts vs. 12 Volts and Power Injection
When our esteemed publisher (Chuck Smith) gave us the task of building a pixel tree, I thought it would be easy because I could build a megatree in no time at all. Get 16 sets of 100 bulb mini-light strings, hang them from a pole, plug them in and you’re done. If I wanted that megatree to dance to the music, I’d plug each string into a channel of a light controller and the WOW would happen. Mr. Smith hinted a pixel tree might be a bit more complicated. Every light had to be controllable (I got to hear the…
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Geek my tree
An interesting thing happened this past Christmas. After retiring my show I got bored and needed to find something to do. I decided to decorate my 12’ Christmas tree with 850 RGB pixels and programed it with several patterns. For the fun of it, I posted it to my Facebook page and the response was huge. People started sharing it, and I started getting lots of questions about how I did it. It was then I realized the challenge of explaining RGB and DMX to people who knew nothing about it. It also became apparent that people wanted to venture…
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Revolution Evolution
We all remember the time when we saw the light display that got us hooked. 35 years ago my parents took their eight year old to a nearby suburb where nearly all the houses were decorated with lights. The display that grabbed my attention had its lights being electronically coordinated and controlled. To the best of my memory it was only about eight channels of lighting control, but back in the late 1970s this was virtually unseen and I was amazed at the patterns that could be created. It burnt a memory in my mind that still stays with me…
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