7' Singing Pixel Snowman now in Wiki!

TomL8345

TomL8345

New member
So this year's big project was building two 7' Singing Pixel Snowmen. It was inspired by last year's StarFlake Spinner in that it used some of the same construction techniques.
Singing Pixel Snowman-640.jpg Snowman Front-640.jpg Snowman Back-640.jpg

The snowman consists of 458 pixels mounted in relatively inexpensive materials. The entire prop, without the pixels, costs less than $70.00 to construct. I had a lot of the parts on hand as leftovers from other Christmas projects and other projects around the house. My cost could have been cut further, but I had Boscoyo custom make both the Face and Hat for me out of 10mm coro, they now offer both the ChromaFace, and ChromaHatMatrix Small on their website. They did such a better job than I would have managed.

I have instructions for Building the Snowman listed in the Wiki - Wiki > Display Construction > Building > 7' Singing Snowman.

A short video can be found at https://vimeo.com/286219059
 
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I have been spending my time on the controller enclosure for each snowman. I used the JDeation.com DIY Enclosure design which fits inside a 12" length of 5" Vinyl Fence Post. My design holds a 300W 5V PS, Distro Board, and has the provision for a PixelStick for future upgrade.
Click image for larger version.
JDeation DIY - Open-640.jpg
I am currently running Data and V- from my controller output into this power box, tying together the V- and sending Data, V+, V- to the top of the snowman, so it should just be a minor adjustment to add the PixelStick.

The enclosure has a provision for using a length of 1/2" PVC pipe to support the enclosure off the ground (over rebar). I took that length of pipe and slid it into the second piece of 2" PVC I added to the bottom spinner and it holds the enclosure perfectly!
JDeation being inserted-640.jpg JDeation Encl in Place-640.jpg

Fully tested now ready to deploy next month.
 
@TomL8345 what is that power distro board you are using? What is the current capacity (total, and each branch)?
 
ags0000 said:
@TomL8345 what is that power distro board you are using? What is the current capacity (total, and each branch)?
Click to expand...

I am using 5V pixels with a 60A PS and Falcon F8 Distro board. I ended up with 7 PI points, maybe overkill, but so what and the 8th output is joined up with data & V- coming in from a remote controller(I plan to eventually convert to a ESPixelStick. For most of the pieces I just used PI at the start and end of the section, the bottom spinner ended up with a PI point somewhere near the middle.
 
Awesome job Tom!
Haven't been on the forums much recently and I just saw this.

I was drawing out some smaller spinners on paper that double as a 5 point star and was trying to figure out how to make 2' PVC circles, guess I will be looking into ADS Polyethylene Coil.
 
Thanks for putting together this detailed write-up! I always enjoy reading through these and possibly picking up new techniques.
 
OK. My wife and I have said "no new props this year" on many occasions (talking about 2019). Then I saw this. :freak:
Oh well, sleeping on the porch isn't all that bad. :blush:
 
algerdes said:
OK. My wife and I have said "no new props this year" on many occasions (talking about 2019). Then I saw this. :freak:
Oh well, sleeping on the porch isn't all that bad. :blush:
Click to expand...

Al,

These were OUTSTANDING! They were the unquestioned hit of my show. As I got better programming them my sequences improved. I am trying to learn some new video editing software to put together a video that will Highlight my Snowmen. I will post this as soon as I get it together.
 
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