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2023 - Time Flies When Your Having Fun!
This blog serves two purposes. I've been asked to post the details of setting up the show on a day to day basis. It also functions like the oganizer in my pocket. The organizer holds my brains, so when my brain is not working, I can reach in to my brain and recall what ever it is I'm trying to remember. This blog does nearly the same thing. It also lets me know how much time I spend making the smiles when the "Lignts are On". If you find anything interesting that you would like me to expand on, just send an email. Sorry I don't do facebook.
Where the time goes is beyond me. Just beware if your thinking of retiring and that you'll have lots of time on you hands, your about to have a big let down!.
So now it's time for some decorating.
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11/25/23 - Sunday. Picked up Lions white cane - bolted to post, hung sign and lights on cane and mailbox. Put up the last 6 strands of spiral tree lights. need to perfect wrapping system. possiby 70 light strings.
put the storage containers in the trailer that I forgot to do. set mouse traps. one ran out of the box while I was in there.
11/25/23 - Saturday am update. Last nights 1st time start up of show was interesting to say the least. Had quite a few visitors which surprised me. Of course Murphy visited. Didn't realize that Frosty had so much frozen water on him that
he couldn't blowup. So while trying to thaw him with heaters I blew not one but both spare fuses I had for the power board. The second one literally disintegrated when it blew.
Who said, "there's nothing to this electrical stuff!". Oh yeah. My good buddy Rob. Personally I've never seen a cartridge fuse disintegrate like that. Scary. So I ended up being "in the show" more often
than night while trying to get and keep things going. Something I try to refrain from doing so as to not distract from all the blink blink of lights. So I did get the dancing tree lights (r/b) strung last night.
Forgot that I still need 2 more strands of blue. Looks like we have a winner in the "who came the farthest contest" already. A couple from Germany were here last night. Carl and Judith (new across the lake) were 1st timers also.
Still have the sprial tree to finish as well as the oak/walnut tree towers. I need to pick up the Lions white cane that I decorate in red / green as a Candy Cane and use for collecting donations for collecting
donations on behalf of the Laingsburg Food Bank. If you didn't know 100% of the money collected goes to the food bank. Will have to wait till tomorrow as I've been requested to roller skate today with
my grandaughter at her birthday celebration today.
11/24/23 - Friday. East side border lights done. Red right garage door working now??? Why? Because it's the green that's half out..
11/24/23 - Friday. Plan. East side road border lights, possibly spiral tree, walnut / oak trees??? Red Right garage door half out.
11/23/23 - Thursday. Turkey Day (like the Detroit Lions). Happy Thanksgiving!
11/22/23 - Wednesday. Too many things to do and not enough hours in a day.
Took Kathy to Okemos for haircut. I picked up new rechargable lights, wood floor trim for closet, meijer for odds and ends. Finished closet floor. Put heater in pond before it decides to freeze. Fish would not like that probably. Xmas. Put up the north and south driveway border lights. Roadside border lights are layed out but there seems to
be a tangle of wires and it's just too dark to see what's going on. They were all tested before I put them out. Discoveed that only half of the north garage lights were working. missed the connection of the two halves. working now. Plugged in the north / south red/green strings
controlled by the automation system. Their went off at 1am which is the time for "all lights off" command to take affect so they are working. Found the three missing strobes when taking the storage containers
across the street to the trailer. Turkey day tomorrow.
11/20/23 - Lions duty - carve turkeys from 2pm - 630pm.
Known issues to fix/resolve.
Mini 9 & 11 have some leds that are out. Swap with 15 & 16. Mega green controller has 4 channels leaking voltage, #14 blue is half out, #3 red is completely out.
consider swapping out green controller, #4 controller has long pigtails (don't need) - consider swapping out with controller marked #7 after testing it - possibly swapping with #13. RBG flood #2 may have an issue or might be controller - blinks,
Right Garage Door has both red and green strings half out. Build blower box for frosty blower, build new donation box new road sign, Thank You lights.
11/20/23 - Monday. Took 3 hours working with straighttalk to figure out why I was only given credit for 3 days when I paid for 90. Worked on closet floor. Tested lights. put the 3 strobes in the front snowflakes. Entryway Frosty (find the correct wire - needs label). One of the green candy canes not lighting (help if it's plugged in), put the correct wire in
for north pole, find and put the #11 dancing tree wire in, plug in the border heavy duty 16/2 wires, plug in the north tune to sign red light (one of them should be green).
11/19/23 - Sunday. Put up penguin mountain, setup green candy canes, redo red candy canes, possibly spiral tree, blowup frosty plugged and tested, update light layout spreadsheet, doc for candy cane layout, print doc
11/19/23 - Sunday. Plan. Lion duty - possible ramp install. Put up penguin mountain, stakes for border lights and border lights, setup green candy canes, redo red candy canes, entryway frosty, possibly spiral tree.
Put up penguin mountain, stakes for border lights and border lights, setup green candy canes, redo red candy canes, test blowup Frosty, entryway static frosty, possibly spiral tree.
11/18/23 - Saturday. Worked on bathroom floor. Lion duty - met with ramp applicant.
Known issues to fix/resolve.
Mini 9 & 11 have some leds that are out. Swap with 15 & 16. Mega green controller has 4 channels leaking voltage, #14 blue is half out, #3 red is completely out.
consider swapping out green controller,
#4 controller has long pigtails (don't need) - consider swapping out with controller marked #7 after testing it - possibly swapping with #13. RBG flood #2 may have an issue or might be controller - blinks,
Right Garage Door has both right and left half out. Candy cane doc needs correcting. Forget 5 steps between. Doc should say layout candy cane harness and place candy canes at plug connection locations.
Need to print Controller doc as working with 2021 copies are invalid. Build blower box for frosty blower, build new donation box new road sign, Thank You lights.
11/17/23 - Friday. Plan. Work on bathroom floor. Lion duty - possible ramp install. Site visit to get pics and some measurements.
Put up penguin mountain, stakes for border lights and border lights, setup green candy canes, redo red candy canes, entryway frosty, possibly spiral tree.
11/16/23 - Thursday. Blowup Frosty, rgb controller and rgb lights, place penguins, garage door r/g lights, mailbox cover,
house snowflakes, stakes for candy canes, . Run power cords to reindeer and north pole. Plug twirller candy cane rope lights into controller, setup Lollipops,
put out red , putup the bedroom r/l vertical lights, r/l garage vertical lights, l/r garage door lights, and snowflakes. Test lights when dark.
11/15/23 - Thursday. Plan - lights on dancing tree, spiral tree blue tower strobe lights, spiral tree lights, rgb controller and rgb lights, place penguins, put up penguin mountain, garage door r/g lights,
house snowflakes, stakes for candy canes, stakes for border lights and border lights. Run power cords to reindeer and north pole. Plug twirller candy cane rope lights into controller, setup Lollipops,
put out red / green candy canes, Test lights when dark???.
11/15/23 - Wednesday. Plan - Moved mega tree controllers from Halloween location to Mega tree location. Setup mega tree base ring. Hung and plugged into controllers the 64 strings of r/g/b/w on mega tree. Plugged
in the mini trees. Attached Felix Tree paracord rope to act as wind support. Placed the bedroom r/l vertical lights, penguin lights, r/l garage vertical lights, l/r garage door lights, and snowflakes.
11/14/23 - Tuesday. White icycle lights up. North Pole up. Put candy cane twirller up. Put Felix out. Put mini tree harnesses out, Put mini trees out, put frosty blower out, put reindeer out,
get penguins out of storage, put wreath up, put snowflake spot light out, put controller cat5 signal cables out. Get present tree tower out of storage. Cut grass on north side. Weed whip spiral tree ring.
11/13/23 - Monday. Mowed lawn. Put out controller power cords to Felix, Mini tree, Mega tree, future arches controller. Power cords to mailbox, donation box, and camera. Power cords to old pine tree.
11/12/23 - 11/13/23. No progress.
11/11/23 - Friday. Blew leaves in prep for final mowing before putting out rest of electrical cables.
11/10/23 - Thursday. Put out the mini tree locator flags.
11/09/23 - Wednesday. Too rainy to do anything outside.
11/08/23 - Tuesday. Nothing outside was done. Spent an hour or so updating LakeVictoriaLights website.
11/07/23 - Monday. Bruce made the mistake of coming over today. So I put him to work. We put in the Mega and Mini and Felix 4x4 posts. Layed out Frosty flags. Used the BFH to pound in the dancing
tree support stakes and put up the Spiral tree support pole. Thanks Bruce.
11/06/23 - Sunday. Finished putting up the remaining eve boards and stored all of the Halloween stuff in the rafters.
11/05/23 - Saturday. Along with Jacqui, Leo, Xander and Athena helping, we had everything tore down. Had to leave some stuff in the garage to dry out before putting into storage.
They swapped out the halloween colored bulbs with the christmas bulbs and I had most of the eves hung. Most importantly we were able to erect the Mega Tree tower (lights will be hung in a week or two. Called it a day at about 5:30pm.
11/04/23 - Friday. Halloween Shows ended. This season was pretty much a complete success. Rain did occur on two nights causing some lights / props to be off. One night I was late getting home and as some props failed to operate as a result of the need to manually plug in some equipment.
2023 ToDo
☑ Store halloween decorations.
☑ Change out the orange / purple led c9 bulbs for the red / blue on the front eves.
☑ Get the mega tree and spiral tree componenets out of trailer.
☑ Mega tree star / strobe lights tested.
☑ Mega tree star plugged in before raising.
☑ Hammer in the controller post supports on #14, #32-#33-#34.
☑ Erect the Spiral tree pole.
☑ Lay out the utility flags for marking mini trees locations.
☑ Lay out the utility flags for marking mega tree anchors.
☑ Plug in South side roof eve lights.
☑ Plug in North side roof eve lights.
☑ Get the rest of the eve boards down and test lights and place on eves.
☑ place dancing tree rebars in line with tune to sign starting at 4' and every 3' thereafter towards driveway
☑ place dancing trees onto rebars.
☑ Can lawn be mowed one more time before placing all cables.
☑ Power cords to mega tree controllers.
☑ Power cords to mini tree controllers.
☑ Power cords to felix singing tree.
☑ Power cords to donation/candycane.
☑ Power cords to south border lights.
☑ Power cords to future arches.
☑ Power cords to future pine tree.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #5 to #4.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #4 ti #0A - led flood controller.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #0A to mini tree controllers.
☑ RS485 signal cable from mini to mega tree controllers.
☑ RS485 signal cable from mega to Felix singing tree.
☑ RS485 signal cable from Felix to #13.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #13 to #14.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #14 to Future arches.
☑ RS485 signal cable from #2 to #7/#8.
☑ RS485 signal cable from ##7/#8 to #32/#33 spiral tree.
☑ Pull the oak/walnut tree lights down from garage storage.
☑ Hammer in and hang the Candy Cane twirller fence post support.
☑ South Tune to sign (should be in right location from halloween).
☑ Put mailbox cover on.
☑ Get mini trees down from garage rafters.
☑ Get mini trees wiring harnesses down from garage rafters and layout to mini trees.
☑ Put out mini trees.
☑ Mega tree lights all plugged in and ready to test.
☑ Complete the setup of mini trees by wrapping mini shock cord around wires and pulling up inside of tree to keep off ground.
☑ Hang Mega tree lights.
☑ Put out Frosty.
☑ Put out Blowup Frosty.
☑ Put a new 4x4 post in to support RGB flood lights controller. Install new longer cables. Mount behind Merry Christmas penguin.
☑ Put up Felix - Singing christmas pixel tree.
☑ Test Felix channels and colors.
☑ Got nervous with wind storms so I used a rope anchored to ground to help support Felix frame.
☑ Put out Penguins.
☑ Shorten the Bedroom snowflake cables and cutoff the excess strobe light cables.
☑ Put up Candy cane twiller.
☑ place dancing tree on rebars and put on lights
☑ place christmas presents on rebar
☑ Put out East road border lights.
☑ Put out South and road border lights.
☑ Put out North border lights.
☑ remount the #13 controller backing board on the oak trees
☑ Blue spiral tree strobes.
☑ Garage vertical lights.
☑ Put out white icycles.
☑ Put out Lolli Pops.
☑ Put up Penguin mountain lights.
☑ Plug in white, red, green, blue, eve lights.
☑ Hang garage wreath.
☑ Put out house snow flakes.
☑ Put out Green candy canes.
☑ Put out Red candy canes.
☑ Put out border light support stakes.
☑ Put out candy cane support frames.
☑ place christmas presents rebar 6' from tune to sign (ie. half way between tuneto and dancing trees)
☑ Initial test of lights that are setup.
☑ Blue rgb penguin light plug in to #5-10.
☑ x-10 for south r/g eve lights now functional - put a new plug on since squirrel chewed it off last year.
☑ Plug Frosty in - 14-15 deflate 14-16 inflate.
☑ Re-Test all lights.
MAJOR ToDo's - Priority:
☐ Red / Green pathway lights.
☐ Put up Oak tree lights.
☐ Put up Walnut tree lights.
☐ Second time Frosty has accumulated ice. He's all thawed out now thanks to a ceramic heater under his rear end!
☑ Hang Spiral tree lights.
☑ Connect Spiral tree led strings to controller #32.
☐ Build? Blowup Frosty blower house. Use underlayment leftover pieces???
☐ North Tune to sign needs fixing (should be in right location from halloween).
☐ North Pole sign still not constructed.
☐ Install LightORama software on new used Lenovo Win 10 laptop.
☐ Recalculate mega tree support rope locations for raising mega tree.
☑ Put out donation candy cane lighting and put up solar arrow light.
☑ Put out Donation sign and spot lights.
☐ Mini tree controller pigtails need to be supported above ground.
☐ Put the new signal cable extension pigtails on controllers.
☐ Now that I have a new RJ45 plug tool, put replacement connector on those signal cables with broken tabs.
☐ Now that I have a new RJ45 plug tool, put replacement connector on mega to rgb controller signal cable since it has a broken tab.
☐ How about the arches?.
☐ How about the shooting stars.
☑ Garage vertical lights.
☐ Spiral tree light strobes and light strands need to be put up.
2023 - Section done
Possible Future Todo's.
☐ Create new hispeed network #2 to felix and arches???.
☐ Put out led pixel arches. Need rebar also.
☐ Put up pole webcam.
☐ Vertical tree led string hoist project??
☐ Need to create the Spiral tree support loop ????.
☐ Need to redesign / recalculate Mega Tree height so as to keep from wrapping lights at ring.
☐ Mega tree ring needs to have markers for where wrgb strings need to be placed.
Previous years todo to check for applicability / need and or completness
☐ Find out how mice are getting in trailer and set traps.
☐ Replace two bad tires on trailer.
☐ Still need to remove bluetooth module and put laptop fuse in Lenovo so display will work again. Hopefully.
☐ Order some new strobes and 5mm strobes when sales start.
☐ Are we going to get the new Arches going this year?
☐ Repair controllers that have bad triacs. mega blue#4, green#6 #7-15, 7-7. Replace #7 then replace the triacs.
☐ Triacs #7 and #14(?) on green mega tree controller - consider replacing controller with new G3. After replacing use for 3rd color spiral tree.
☐ New chicken wire bulbs for north and south end.
☐ Add future blue c9 led strings so it's no longer a future project) to garage and south side??
☐ Bad pixel on felix (upper left corner of mouth)
☐ Put some stake holders in ground where penguins go to make setup easier since we have some scrap pvc - need caps.
☐ Replace north pole rope lights with led rope light?? Colors with led rope might be better hopefully.
☑ Should I consider changing Felix frame such that wind load can be reduced (ie. swinging frame)? No. Just add rope support / braces!
☐ Need to finish conversion to S5 now a question??.
☐ Pine tree removed! Replace with smaller one???
☐ Need wire labels for missing wires. Mini trees 12W or 13W & 15W - Snowflakes?
☐ Still need to build new Snowflakes
☐ North star needs to be rebuilt (held up pretty good for 10 years) Not lighting.
Old one has been rebuilt and needs to be added to spiral tree. Trying to decide if I like it. After the work put in to it I'm wondering if it might be taken as a negative on religion.
☐ In process - Singing christmas tree sequence programming
☐ In process - In process - Sequencing changes #4 to #5 and vice versa for red candy canes - entryway ☐ snowflakes? - possibly spiral tree - now 32. Also check red / green tune to sign spots to controllers #32(red) #33(green - which doesn't exist yet - temp #34 blue)
☐ Labeling of some wires such as #15-14,15 white minis - do a label check on everything plugged in.
☐ Reminder that I still need to update website with pics.
☐ RGB floods need to be documented
☐ New Donation mailbox - build 2022?
☐ Create the North Pole light / side sign extension.
Indoor and Misc
☐ Setup train.
☐ Replaced two triacs on spare controller. Will substitute that for one of the mega tree problem controllers.
☐ update controller documentation.
☐ Indoor decorations and lights.
☐ put out candy lollipop lights around frosty. Create doc after setting up. see existing pic on phone.
☐ Donation candy cane needs to be put out. (Idea - put a hanging spot light on cane
still getting feedback about hard to find slot)
☐ Finish hanging north and south border lights.
☐ Blowup frosty is set and functional. Took new pictures so it's easier to setup next year.
☐ Changed LOR Preview to eliminate channel conflicts - have an uneasy feeling about S5 converson and functionality. There's a lot of code change and new functionality that affects how sequences are coded.
☐ Check and edit controller channels on 32/33
☐ Put controller id labels on 15-18 and 7 & 8.
☐ Ran new high speed rs485 network cable to rgb flood controller, then to Felix the singing Christmas tree, and then on to arch controllers.
☐ run second network signal cable for high speed rgb devices
☐ RS-485 cat5 cable from #2 to #7-8 needs new modular jack. replaced with new cat5 wire.
☐ Are linklight transmitter/receivers working - driver issue?
☐ Plugged in the oak tree tower lights.
☑ Setup indoor Christmas tree after moving recliner.
☑ Hung indoor lights in arches and windows.
☑ Hung indoor and outdoor front door / stain glass window christmas covers.
☐ Finished backup of Lenovo - need to install LOR on new HP laptop computer and transfer (?) vm guest to it (maybe - possibility that LOR won't run on xp mode vm based on preliminary research).
☐ Put wire labels on red / green candy cane harnesses.
☐ x-10 for north r/g eve lights.
☐ Tested four of the six c9 oak/walnut tree tower lights.
☐ Create new north pole wiring w/labels.
☐ Create labels for new reindeer wire and Lake Victoria Sign wire.
☐ Christmas presents need a new method of setting up - maybe a conduit in ground - hole punched in ground for support.
☐ Had excess wire/lights left over at base. Came to the conclusion that maybe I forgot to put the pin inside the base which allowed the 20' NG pipe to sink into ground because of weight.
☐ Need to redesign / recalculate height so as to keep from wrapping lights at ring.
☐ Mega tree ring needs to have markers for where wrgb strings need to be placed. ie. every red location - green splits the reds - while and blue split the red/greens. Note: 64" radius, 128" diameter, 65" chord.
drive nail stakes in at 6 locations 64" then xx
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