At the end of the 2009 season I decided it was time to build a LED Mega Tree.\u00a0 A Mega Tree is best described as a display item that outlines a traditional tree shape using strings of lights hanging from the top of a mast to the bottom at equally spaced distance around the base.\u00a0 There are many examples on the net – Mega Trees have become a basic item for most displays.\u00a0 Each string of light is individually controlled enabling all sorts and affects to be displayed.\u00a0 Generally multiple colours are used allowing more thematic displays to suit the chosen music track.<\/p>\n
The are 4 critical components to a Mega tree:<\/p>\n
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Only two critical dimensions are chosen namely the Height and base diameter.\u00a0 A great little ap hosted at altoonalights.com<\/a> has been created to help with the design.\u00a0 In my case,\u00a0 I chose 5m above the ground with an area below to add outline boxes.\u00a0 The base diameter ended up being 1.8 metres.<\/p>\n Usually multiples of 3 or 4, the number of channels depends greatly on your controller hardware, the number of light colours and\u00a0 the string lengths.\u00a0 Some trees use double length strings.\u00a0 What ever string length you choose, higher channel count give a more graduated control over the tree animations.\u00a0 I chose 3 colours of 16 channels each.<\/p>\n Red and\u00a0 Green are definite Must Haves.\u00a0 Blue adds variety as does White.\u00a0 I am limited in what LED strings I have been able to purchase, and Red<\/span><\/strong>, Green<\/span><\/strong> and Blue<\/span><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My tree has three main components:<\/p>\n Welding the Base <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The base serves to anchor the mast to the ground and keep it in place, and can be a very critical component.\u00a0 The use of guys assists with stability and allow to flimsier mast compared to a self supporting mast.\u00a0 I decided to use a self supporting mast.\u00a0 Some bases consist of a hole in the ground that the mast slips into.\u00a0 In the off season, the hole has a cap inserted. It is a permanent garden fixture.\u00a0 Other bases use a 5ft Star post or section of 25mm Rio Rod.\u00a0 These “shouldn’t” be permanent.\u00a0 however the effort to remove such a length of steel is no easy task.\u00a0 No matter what method is chosen,\u00a0 there are excellent examples on the web.<\/p>\n I had been toying with the idea of using a “Portable Hole”.\u00a0 I got the idea of the Portable Hole from Walter Monkhouse over at www.magicchristmas.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n I came up with this design to enable me to move the hole easily.\u00a0\u00a0 It is basically an old car wheel with a pipe stub welded to the Disk Brake Rotor. The mast slips into the pipe stub.\u00a0 The Eye bolts attached to the Rotor are anchor points.\u00a0 The eye bolts are then used to anchor the the base to 4 Reo rod pegs. After copious amounts of grinding the mast stub OD, I managed to whack the stub into the rotor a decent amount.\u00a0 The stub was stick welded to the rotor using nice deep fillets.\u00a0 Next 4x 30mm angles were trimmed and welded to brace the rotor and stub.<\/p>\n I ended up not using Eye bolts.\u00a0 Exhaust pipe clamps were an easy solution for launching the turn-buckle fasteners.\u00a0 Further details can be seen the gallery below.<\/p>\n <\/strong>Welding the Crown The Sliding Crown enables the light strings to be hoisted up the mast.\u00a0 This is not totally necessary, but does have some major advantages:<\/p>\n Two items need to be manufactured:<\/p>\n# of Channels<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
String Colours<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
Construction<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
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\nWhilst shopping at SuperCheap Autos I discovered they were selling Trailer Disc Hubs for $19 each!!!!!! How cool it was that. One local parts wrecker wanted to charge $10 for a 2nd hand one. No matter what I said, he wouldn’t budge.\u00a0 At first glance it looked like the Rotor main bearing OD was just a tad smaller that the OD of the Stub to be welded.<\/p>\n
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![[nggallery id=5]<\/a><\/p>\nAll this effort was totally worth it! All I am missing is a Star for the top.<\/del>\n](\"http:\/\/baulkolites.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/MegaTree1.jpg\"){kind=link}