Kim and William's web home!

Wow a year has flown by! The lights were a hit and a sucess!

 

The lights are off and down... the yard looks so bare now..  Now with the economy still sucking and seeing friends and neighbors loosing their jobs, I am wondering where everything may go... 

Heck I might be looking for a Job soon,  since Verizon and Alltel merged.... so  stayed tuned!

 

 

 

Wow had the time flown by! The lights are up and ready to go! It didn't take as long as I thought it would! I have 2 strings that need to be replaced that have issues, but they "should" be on the way.  Everything is tested.  The system will run on its own now.  Saturday 11/29/08  is the official kick off!  I will do my best to stream Live video either here or to www.twodoglights.com! It will probably KILL my bandwidth but what the heck, Its christmas!

 

I have also set up a Online Kettle  to donate to the Salvation Army.  Please click this link and donate! I know times are tight, but give up the cost of 1 Big Mac meal to them! Click here fill the Kettle! 

 

 

 

I also have registered on all the right places!

 

 

http://www.tackylighttour.com/christmas_lights/tourist.aspx?touristid=3450&utm_source=Syndication&utm_medium=Image

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Its me again! Update time!

 

First thing is the "tune to sign".  I  was going to make a coroplast sign and light it with some low voltage floods that kim had for some of her garden stuff. But I saw an entry on Planet christmas awhile back about a backlit sign.. I liked this appearance much better.  With my past of making backlit parts for car audio, I decided this was the way to go.. This is box is made out of interior grade 5/8 plywood. I added a plywood furing strip to the inside, and rounded the corners with my router. There were a few places that needed smoothing and fill, so I dug out my small can of Bondo! Once  all smoothed I primed it with 2 coats grey primer, them 2 coats Rustnoleum Pro Hunter Green paint. The inside is painted white. I used real glass so its easier to keep clean. Plex and Lexan tends to scratch when cleaning. A thin foam weatherseal was placed along the front strips to seal the glass to the box. The sign was purchased  from www.fastsigns.com. It is sandwiched between 2 pieces of glass and is 18x24 in size. The glass is held in by 4 furing strip blocks.  I then made furing strips  to hold the back panel on. I attached of set of clear mini lights I took off my sprial tress  since it was 6 loops of 35 lights strung together.   The legs are simple. I used some pieces that are for attaching an antenna mast on the side of a house.  I also added some  3/4 square tubing stock I had left from another older project for better support.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

Next project was something Kim asked for.. ( amazing how she has actually gotten into this project with me!) She was asking me where I was going to place the train we got last year at home depot in the Yard . I told her in front of the mega tree. She suggested I make some lighted tracks for the train . So when Kim speaks I listen! I saw some "chasing" multicolor rope light at Target, so I decided that was the ticket. The rope light is 18FT, so I started laying PVC pipe out to get that covered. I cut 12 pieces of 3/4" PVC 3ft long. Using 45deg angles I made as close to a circle as I could. The makes a 10ft open are in the middle! Since this is so big I used unions in the middle of the longer sections so I can make it small enough to store in the shed. I cut 60 "RR ties" 5 inches to attach the rope light to with wire ties. The mega tree will be set in the middle of this so it looks like a train can run around the tree. Once I get the Tree up , I will see about trying to actually placing the train on the tracks for an even better visual effect! This will be a "static" piece so its always on, and it has its own blinky blinky.

 

I finally got around to taking better pictures of our PC's. This all started by me wanting to cool down the PC's cause the room got hot with them running about a year ago before PC (Planet Christmas). After some research on the net...I modded mine first, but Kim got jealous! So she talked me into "modding her Dell Dimension 2400. Yep I was crazy enough to mod a DELL! Come to find out hers was the one blowing out most of the HOT air! DELL does some trick cooling designs to keep them quiet, but IMHO sucks at keeping them really cool! I added a 90mm fan in the front of hers that is hidden by the case cover, by cutting out the metal in front of the Hard drives. I also got a better processor cooler from Zalman, and UV lights. The outside is a decal material I found on the net. Kim didn't want hers just "painted". Kim has this thing for COLORS! Its still runs warmer than mine but its much better than before. Most of her heat is from the power supply that is just big enough to run the PC. Her next PC I will custom build. Don't get me wrong, Her Dell has run virtually flawless and its over 4 years old! I also built a fan for the PCI graphics card as the one that came with the card started squealing

 

 

  My PC is a custom build. It has a 120mm fan in the front and the top..90 mm in the back, and I also added another 90mm fan to the power supply, besides the one that came in the power supply. I also added the fan cooler for my video card All the Fans are indivdually speed adjustable ..It also has UV lights! MY PC  is TONS faster than hers!

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I am done welding!

 

I made these simple light mounts for my Poles that support my front porch. I was going to use 2 sets of 50 mini's on each one, but Kim found some concave 5mm LED sets at Biglots the other day for $10! Best part is they were 90 light per string sets! That made these much fuller in color!  Hopefully this will be all the light needed now ( I have my fingers behind my back crossed). I also wrapped the last arch with red led's so that one is done now also...Now its just sequence sequence sequence!

I have found Vince Guaraldi was a sick puppy music wise. His 2 selections I am using ( Christmastime and Linus and Lucy) have been the hardest to sequence so far!

 

 

Now That I decided to have a mega tree, A tree isn't a tree without a topper, so I made a star! The blues are 2 strings of  50 c-6 LED and the whites are 2 strings of 50 G12 LEDs!

 

 

 

 

I saw this billboard Saturday night on the way to the CLC meet.  I took a double take at it!  Then laughed my head off!

Funny how things happen....

 

I got my DCMP3 from LOR early last week, then my clips came in,  the saturday the LED's showed up!  I wasted no tme in getting them on the fan!.      

 

 

I also created a weather tight box for the DCMP3 and the FM Transmitter. I found this at Home depot!  I liked it had a built in plug for the FM transmitter Power supply. Now that will be secured from the weather also.    

 

 

Hey everyone! Its time for an update.

 

Ok some more changes to the layout, luckily this didn’t affect the sequences I have already done much. I have already adjusted them. So far I have TSO "Wizards of Winter", David Foster "Carol of the Bells, Manheim Steamroller "deck The Halls", TSO "Siberian Sleigh Ride" That are complete. I am working on TSO "Wish Liszt". Vince Guaraldi Trio "Christmastime" and "Linus and Lucy" I hope to have 30 minutes of music. I will keep working on more!  I am going to try to have a few non Christmas music items the week after Christmas by "the blue man group", but we will see.

 

Changes to the layout... I have decided to move the 16 tree on the right to the left and control them with 8 channels in a circle/ star pattern. I have also decided to make a mega tree with 32 strings of blue LEDS and 16 channels of control. I will make this using my portable basketball goal. When finished it should be about 12/13 feet high.  The other small trees will be added to the yard "outline along with 4 I will make from the "tomato cages" that didn’t grow any tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

So it was tear it apart, and a trip back to home depot to return some stuff and buy new to start all over. This time I used 1/2 EMT conduit tubing ( I will use this stuff more often, its just as cheep as PVC just harder to bend) , so there is no flexing anymore. The fun part was bending the arcs with took some time and patience. Kim's idea of hinges in the middle will work out great. Closed up it will protect the lights.

I ordered 14 sticks of 20ft 1/4" steel rod from http://www.imsmetals.com and cut them to 47 5/8, 64 of them! They are welded to the arc framework.

 

 

 

I guess when I told Kim I could build it all with metal, she started thinking it was going to get heavy. Well she was thinking WAY ahead of me. After pricing some items, my simple solution was an inexpensive hand truck. The parts alone to make it roll was over $40. The hand truck was $24. I just had to chop up a brand new hand truck and fabricate it in. This also gave me "legs" I was going to incorporate to pick it off the ground at the same time. I painted it with Rustnoleum Professional Hunter Green. I have blue LEDS here to put on it, but had to order 24 sets of lights (8 green, red and white) from http://www.ledholidaylighting.com , along with 2000 light clips from http://www.lorislighteddlites.com. to finish this up. Once they all get here I will show the finished product. This should be BRIGHT

Acutally lots! The hall bathroom is done! Still have the master to do and its gonna be much more work. Planning to take another week off from work soon just to work on that project!

 

All the light controllers are done!  Just need to order 1 more part the DCMP3 to run the "shows" and that will happen ummm Saturday LOR SALE Time!!

 

A few weeks ago we were able to take a vacation. We had stuff planned, then that fell thru due to work, then work cleared up again so we did something else. ( could no longer get flights for original plans).  SOOOO  we took off to Florida and went to Kennedy space center! I messed up and planned it 1 day short of seeing the shuttle lift off! We also went to Disneyworld. We will not go back again. Nothing bad except too expensive for an adult. Not enough good thrill rides.. At $60 a park, yep too expensive per good rides. Now the hotel we stayed at in Melborne was the BOMB! Great veiw, and there was a squall  that went thru Sat evening that cooled it off so nice we slept with the patio doors open! We went shell hunting and found this litte crab running around, looking at us like we were crazy cause we wanted to take his picture!

 

 

 

here we go with a news update.   . Have to paint the bathroom this weekend , so the last controller is on the back burner.    I also made an updated "rendition" of the  proposed lighting! Keep in mind this may still change, but very little between now and well showtime.... thats all for now...

 

 

Controller UPDATE!  4 out of 5 are now built and tested.  Funny how much easier they are getting, and the wiring in them are looking better each time too...

 

 

 

 

The second LOR controller kit is finished, tested and all working..

 

 

 

When I started this lighting craziness,  Kim asked me for a Bethleham star  for the Peak of the roof. Of course I said OK.  Little did she know what I had in mind..  Once I browsed  a few websites and found the shape she liked. I finally got around this weekend to actually building it. I made one back in January, and had lights on it, but really was not happy with the way it looked when lit. Doing the Bells gave me a totally different vision! I used the old one as a pattern, and made 4 rows of 1/4 rod stock. Now I had places for all 4 colors, that I could make look as close to the same as possible..  I was  hoping to double the lights on it, but they would not fit properly. BUMMER!  So here is the final results!!

 

 

The first photo is all 4 colors on. the next 4 are the individual colors. Let me knwo what you think!!!

 

 

and now there are 2!!  Looks like I will need a few more specific LED lights to pull off what I am planning ( YES I have made a few more changes, very minor but will make a BIG impact)...  I will have a few left over from my "after christmas shopping experience."  Will wait and see when I put everything out!

 

 

Yep another nice day In AZ.  A tad warm but overall it is the weather I Like. The past 2 weeks or so have been YARDWOrk. Who invented Crabgrass?? That sucker needs to come pull each blob up by hand.. Ok I feel better now.. My wife has been putting crabgrass stuff out on the yard and it seems to be working.. Next fall/early spring I will use a preemergence herbacide...It wont happen again!

 

I was able to get the first bell done with lights.. Came out pretty good... I will do the second one this week. I deemd this weekend " MY STUFF" weekend, so I took on running the big cord thru the patio into the attic. I ordered a extention to the big cord I had , so now I have enough to run from the back by the Main Panel to the front of the house.  I was going to put the "spider box" in the attic, but this will be MUCH better.. I found some RV power cable panels  from the same person on ebay that i got the extention from. So I nabbed 2 along with the Cable....

 

I also included a pic of my "elves"!  left is my "single" stepdaughter Jill, and my wife Kim on the right. 

 

More to come as I build... Still have another arch, another bell, and 4 controllers to build. 

 

My wife and I have been doing many things lately since the weather has been so nice. Trying to get them all done so I can get back to christmas decorations.

 

  A few weeks ago we had a yard sale. I will NEVER EVER do that again! Last weekend  I reworked  a few sprinkler heads and repaired the clothes line. The clothes line should last a very long time now! I used wire cabling, and turn buckles.  The clothes line back at the house I grew up in was done like this, and it was still there when my dads house was sold a few years back.  

 This weekend I finished adding 49 clay paver squares to the side gate so it now covers the full opening of the gate. The grass never really grew good there anyways.  Today we finshed  the beds I created a few weeks ago my wife has been hinting for a few years now.  There are a few more projects to get done.  I still need to finish putting up gutters around the house. Also The 2 batherooms are getting redone.  The hall bathroom is just getting paint..  The master bath will get a bit work more than paint. Not much but a bit more TLC.  Thats all for now....

 

haha  BTW Ignore one of my Feb 24th photo album as it has some of the signature files I made in it...I animated me some to my likings.. Sorry cannot be like the others with the normal LOR signatures....so I made someI like... Will probabaly make some more sometime too.... since I found how easy they are to make and upload...

Ok this hobby is more expensive than GOLF! ha ha! But I am loving it! And I think I got almost everything i need now, except for a few odd and ends...I'll know when I mock it up later this year...

 

 

Saturaday I played Tag with everyone else that is as crazy as I am, and ordered the remaining 4 Controllers  since they were on a super secret sale!  So secret we crashed the Yahoo server LOR was using! I have also made a final decision to get the LOR DC-MP3......more to come on these as I build themm

 

I also got my Ramsey TM100 antenna in and built it rather easily.  I tested it out and makes a world of difference! I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone using a Ramsey TX..

 

 I also ordered some wireframe bells from Valerie at www.christmas-leds.com for the roof. I was going to frabricate these but at the price even with shipping I could not have built these and had them powder coated like these are! Once I get everything else made, I will wrap those with LEDs.. It is one of those last minute decisions since I had 2 extra channels that were getting lonely on controller 1. They will make a great contribution to "carol of the bells"! This is another one of those places that seems to bend over backwards for us Lighting fanatics! I emailed them as they only showed 1 in stock and I needed 2. When I got home I checked my email and Valerie had found a second one and updated the Cart to accept my order! Now that is service!!