Thanks Jim....
I use some of those 9" spikes with my leapers to attach wires to allow me to keep them aligned.... I'll pick up some for tree stakes on my next Lowes run....Thanks for sharing your method....
Mini tree question
- Thread starter Santacarl
- Start date
Thanks Jim....
I use some of those 9" spikes with my leapers to attach wires to allow me to keep them aligned.... I'll pick up some for tree stakes on my next Lowes run....Thanks for sharing your method....
There is a good write up in the wiki on snubbers.
I use 48. I got James medium 360 coro mini trees. Left the bottom two rows empty for snow fall and I think it was 4 columns in the back empty. So 270 degrees or something like that. I think they are about 36 inch tall.
LOL....yeah what you said! Don't know where I conjured up that term..... My 64k memory does a memory dump when new technology pops up and the old stuff goes to the recycle bin....
Are those pixel trees? Do they 'pop' like a wrapped tree.... I sort of like the look of those and haven't seen a coro tree.....Is it full or does it trend more to the Charlie brown side...? LOL
Well....I would imagine that 360 degrees for a pixel mini tree might be overkill since so many of the pixels would be on the back side....unless you like the 'glow' that you get when looking from the rear...or unless you have people viewing from multiple angles.... I did my pixel mega tree in 210 degrees....just enough so that you can see scrolling disappear around the back side.... Since the back is open I've stood back there and observed the 'rear glow' of my pixels.... I suppose if you were just looking for a fill color to bleed through that would be okay....and it would give it a fuller look when combined with the forward facing ones....but any patterns will also be influenced by what's on the back side.....I think, at least on my MT, that would be too distracting......
Plus.....you can save a chunk of change if you are building a lot of them.....
beeiilll
Supporting Member
I will make a large pixel tree eventually I hope and that will probably be 270 degree as my yard allows wide angle viewing and a 180 degree would look flat.
The mini trees are a frame that I already have. I have 6 frames and enough garland to cover them so would probably use pixels all the way around unless maybe just go 270 degrees and then zig-zag back with them. I have 10 trees that have garland and leds on them already so I will be converting them over to pixels over the coming years. I am very happy with the 360 degree on the leds and people like them as well. The back glow from them is very nice on the snow as well since I live in upstate NY and we almost always have snow for the Christmas season. That is why I was thinking of going 260 degree with the pixels but may just have to build up one with 360 degree pixels and one with 270 degree and see how they look compared to each other! I have not thought about patterns on the mini trees but that does give me something to think about as I will have 16 total of them eventually I suppose it could make a pretty impressive line of them and scroll things across them.
The pixels on the backside or about 90 degrees that are not really visable would be for back lighting or fill in lighting against the snow so there could be less of them in that section of the tree I guess. I have to start thinking in term of pixels and not leds I guess for them!
These are the trees that I will be converting over to pixels.
I will also probably be using something like an ESPixelStick and power supply in each tree to make them independent of cabling other than a power feed to each one although that is not something that is firm yet to me. I like the idea of each one being flexible enough to just stick out there when I do redesigns on the display.
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I don't have pixels on them yet but my 54 mini trees are here waiting for me to strip the 100 dumb rgb off and install pixels which are here waiting... My trees last year had 100 dumb rgb which is a little thin. With 54 mini trees I really don't want to mess with power injection on top and bottom of each tree.. 150 nodes would look much better in my opinion but I can live with 100. If I didn't have so many trees it would definitely be more than 100. I used 42" tomato cages with 100 dumb rgb each with 3" spacing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOprGklzGFg
mikeh65
Supporting Member
Where do you plug a snubber in? Seems to me that if you put it on the string you will blow the resistor as soon as the string goes on.
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jnealand
New member
Snubbers work great on AC light. I just plug them into the end of the string. Besides stopping the low power glow when the lights are supposed to be off, they seem to give much smoother dimming.
It doesn't matter which end you plug it in to.....Either end is a basically a parallel circuit so either end bridges (parallels) the 2 AC lines..... either way the resistor bleeds of the excess/stray low voltage and the resistance is high enough that it doesn't generate much heat when the full load is across it.....
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In parallel with the string. It basically goes across the two wires on the power cord - though there are los of ways to actually do it. I put mine directly in the SSR box, right where the power pigtail wires attach to the terminal blocks on the SSR board.
And, yes and no, you can blow it unless you size the resistor appropriately - both resistance and wattage. It does, however, slightly increase your electricity usage.
You should use a resistor around 50K (mine are 47K). You can use a lower value (perhaps half that) or higher (not sure how much higher) - the exact value doesn't matter.
120v / 47K = ~2.5mA (2.5 milliamps). So power dissipated (as 'waste' heat) Vi = (i^2 ) * R = ~0.3W so use a half watt - or better yet a one watt - resistor. If your resistance is too low, or the power rating too low for the resistance, you WILL see sparks! And you'll increase your power usage by 0.3W per string - likely not an issue.
As Skunberg pointed out:
So search for 'snubber'. There are some other posts - you just have to look for them.Skunberg said:
Some of those posts also discuss different ways to actually connect/use them. Some are easier/better than others. One of the slicker ideas is to actually put it inside a (male) plug assembly - then you just add that plug to the END of the string with issue.
Jimboha
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