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How It's Made
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Mini Trees -  Close
Here's how we make the mini trees on top of the roof. They are made from a 3 foot, 3 legged wreath stand bought at the craft store, 2 strings of lights, and a large handful of wire ties. I wrap only one side instead of the tradition 3 sides so they will lay flat for storage.
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Start with one wreath stand and 2 boxes of 100 bulb mini lights
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First, remove the stand's back leg holder bar
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Start at the top with the first light wire tied on both sides so it will stay standing straight up
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Just start wraping the wreath stand while wire tying about everyother wrap to the stand as shown
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Once the stand is wrapped, cut all the wire tie ends
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Go ahead and cut the female plug end as you'll need it to make your homemade extenion cords. You can just cover the ends with electrical tape.
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All done and ready to add the bunge cord hooked at the top and run down the middle to a hook in the roof to keep them from blowing away in a strong wind
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Because we wrap just the front side, the mini trees will stack flat for storage
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Here's a picture of a 3 sided wrapped mini tree. They stack one on top of another for storage. I find that the backside of the front side only wrapped mini tree puts on good light so I stick with the construction above.
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Here's a few shots of the mini trees on the roof
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Cables and Controller Boards - Close
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We make our own extension cords with 18-9 or 18-10 Sprinkler cable you can buy at home depot or Fry's Electronics. We splice in a plug where we need one for an item to blink. The plugs used are removed from an old set of lights or a light string end we won't be using like on the mega tree. See "Homemade Extension Cords"
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The majority of the cables and extension cords come in to the garage, to connect to the LOR (Light-o-Rama) controller boards, through a hole in the wall. I put an electrical box on both sides of the wall, then during the year I just put a regular blank box cover over the outside.
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The LOR controller boards are mounted on a painted 2'x4' piece of plywood with 8"-"L" brackets that slip over the cabinets. The cables and extension cords come in from the hole or up from the floor to the right. Notice the rely switches on the middle board used to change the mega tree light colors when the house is changed to white and blue colors.
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A close up of the controller board that blinks the roof mini trees and spiral trees in the yard.
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To power the controller boards, I made a 10 gage wire extension cord (orange) that's pluged into my unused electric clothes dryer 220v plug. 220v gives me two 120v 30amp circuits for a total of 60amps at the gang box of 8 plugs (4 plugs to a circuit.
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Homemade Extension Cords - Close
Warning: You are responsible for your own power, amp, and wire size calculations!
Here's how we make the the homemade extension cords from 18/9 sprinkler cable (18 = wire gauge/9 = numbers of wires in the cable). With the use of these cables we eliminate the need for using or buying hundreds of extension cords. You can also use the 18/10 wire that Home Depot carries on a 500' spool for a good price. Fry's Electronics also has 18/9 or 10 wire at a good price. In some places I use 18/5 or 18/4 cable if I'm only going to control a few items in a specific area.
First I rough measure how much cable I'll need, then purchase the cable. Next I'll run the cable from my controller board out to where I need it and mark the cable, using blue painter's tap, where I'll need a female plug spliced in. This means I need to know where the lights or objects will be in the display. Most of the time I make the cables when I test fit the new item or when I first put it up the week of Thanksgiving.
*Important* - When making the extension cord, remember to use the same wire sequence for all your cables. Example: Black wire is always used for the plug at the end of the cable or when I have 4 items to control, the black wire is always the 1st plug. I use the resistor colors to keep the wire sequence consistant with all my cables. There is a mnemonic to help remember the color sequence. Note the mnemonic was from before the 1950's so it's not PC.
Mnemonic = Black boys rape our young girls but violet goes willingly for silver or gold. (black has been changed to 'Bad' to be pc but does not help remember the first color)
- black - 0
- brown - 1
- red - 2
- orange - 3
- yellow - 4
- green - 5
- blue - 6
- violet - 7
- gray - 8
- white - 9
- sliver - 10
- gold - 11
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Here's what the 18/9 sprinkler cable wires look like.
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The tools I use. I use the volt/ohm meter to check each plug when I'm done. The tools are sitting on a board that I use to protect my kitchen table while I watch TV and make my extension cords.
I use the green electrical tape and the fine point Sharpie pen to make a tag on both ends of the cable identifying what it is. Example: "Mega Tree Multi Right" for Mega Tree cable, multi color lights, right side 8 of the 16 strands
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You'll need female plug ends. I cut the female plugs off the end of old lights or from the ends of light strings that I know that I won't be adding to like the ends of the Mega Tree strings. For plugs where you'll want to plug in extension cords to the plugs or where you'll have lights or an item with a large neutral plug prong, I use real extension cord ends as well.
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I first hold down the cable with vice grips
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Where I have marked the cable with painter's tap, I'll splice in a plug
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Using an Exacto knife, I open the outer casing of the cable to expose the wires. If the color I'm looking for is on the other side, I'll turn over the cable and make another slit in the casing to get at the wire I need
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Next I find the wire color I need, use a small screw driver to get underneath it to separate it out and cut the wire. Do not do this for the white "neutral" wire.
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Next I find the white neutral wire and separate it out first with a small screw driver then with a large blade flat screw driver to protect the other wires when I strip it and solder it.
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Large blade flat screw driver in place to protect the other wires and the protective cover cut back on top and sides with the Exacto knife to expose the wire.
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One of the female plug wires soldered to the white wire. I do tin the plug ends and white or colored wires before I solder them together
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Now slide a small piece of electrical tape under the white wire so you can wrap the soldered wires. I use a pair of needle nose pliers to get in there to pull the tape through. This can take some time and I also use the small screw driver to push the tape back under the wire on each wrap.
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White wire now taped up and you can next solder the other plug wire to the one that you cut. Wrap it separately with tape.
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Ok, now just wrap up splice as shown and your done - on to the next plug!
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Warning: You are responsible for your own power, amp, and wire size calculations!
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3 Story Candy Canes - Close
Here's a picture of the completed 3 story high candy cane put up for a test fit and look. You can see the stick part of the cane in the 2007 display pictures. It turned out to be just too big even when I changed it to only 2 stories tall. The original plan was to one on each of the columns infront of the house. The candy canes would have just been too dominant and made the display a gigantic candy cane house. So it will sit on the side of the house or maybe in front of a neighbor's house or maybe even the light pole on the street. It does look great!
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Just too big for our display
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The stock piece structure is made from 3/4" metal conduit, electrical pvc conduit, and sprinkler pvc joints. The curved cane part is made from 1/2" sprinkler pipe. They are bolted together at the roof line
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The cane is also attached to the top of the roof with a piece of pvc pipe
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Here you can see the main structure held to the roof line facia by a "u" bracket. At the bottom of the picture is the bolts that hold both pieces together with bolts and wing nuts. See close up below
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This picture shows the end of the curve piece bolted to the roof facia with long carriage bolts. See close up below.
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Close up of the "u" bracket. It is extended out by a piece of gray pvc pipe fitting and the main structure bolted to the curved cane piece made from white pvc pipe
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Close up of the carriage bolt holding the end of the cane in place. Wing nuts are also used here for easy attachment and removal. There is a piece of pvc sprinker extender pipe cut to length to hold the cane end at the right distance from the roof.
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