How To - Make Custom Mini Trees

[@mike6ds]

Thanks for the video!

[@dmurdaugh2569]

Great video. Thank you for sharing.

[@brentwoods8623]

New to the whole pixel lights and wanting to get into doing a show for next year. Are your lights regulated or resistors, or is that something new? If those types are new, can you still get non regulated, resistor pixels?

[@NiFamilyLights]

Welcome to the world of pixel lighting! Now’s a good time to do your research and planning for a 2024 show! All of my lights are 12v regulated WS2811 pixels. Resistor based pixels wasn’t a thing until a few years after I started. Both regulated and resistor based 12V pixels are still available. They each have their pros and cons, and you can have a great show with either type. If you’re looking to purchase new, resistor based pixels use less power, are more data corruption resistant, and are also less costly to boot. The one downside is that you may have to power balance or power inject props to ensure color consistency across long runs (250+ pixels or so). Check out my videos testing the specs of regulated and resistor based pixels to see how they differ. Best of luck and feel free to post comments/questions any time.

[@jaredmcqueen3833]

love the vids, our family comes by your house every year. Always a great show. Question - you teased those windows on the last video. Could you make a quick video on how you made the windows? I'm going to do mine this year and was going to get started now before it gets to be crunch time

[@NiFamilyLights]

Thanks for the comment and happy to hear that you’ve been enjoying the show in person. Yes, I kind of did tease doing a video of the window setups, didn’t I. I’ll work on getting that vid made. There’s things I like about them and some things I don’t.

[@bossjtv5621]

Can you teach how to do that sir I buy all your items for Christmas

[@supergirl2997]

Where did you buy the material?

[@NiFamilyLights]

I got it from the local hardware store. If you want full 4x8 sheets, you can order them.

[@11290slk]

Did you use a forstner bit or step drill for the 1/2" holes? I've never tried drilling coro but wondered about tearout.

[@NiFamilyLights]

I tried a bunch of different drill bits. None of them cut perfectly with 4mm Coro, but the one that worked the best for me was a forstner bit. Even still, it isn't perfect. I still have all the different drill bits, so maybe I'll make a video showing all the different types and how well they cut (or don't cut).

[@RichardLoucks-et1es]

Is the second tree the same numbering starting at 1 or is it 86. Are these strung together

[@NiFamilyLights]

From a physical setup, they are all identical. Within xlights, the channel numbering will follow how you have them laid out in the layout tab. If you created one mini tree then copied and pasted the rest, their channel numbers will be consecutive.

[@NiFamilyLights]

In my show, I do chain 6 of them off of a single controller output with power injection after every two mini trees. You can see how I do that in the “How-To - Chain Pixel Props Like a Champ” video.

[@WooderBoyProductions]

Where did you get your pixels from?

[@NiFamilyLights]

I've been running pixel light shows for many years and haven't needed to purchase pixels for a while. That said, the pixels used in my props and shows were purchased from DIYLedExpress (pixels are sourced from ScottLED), also directly from ScottLED, and Ray Wu. There are a number of pixel suppliers out there. It comes down to price, quality, and customer service.

[@pgc4147]

unable to see this in the video but i wondered how you oriented the coroplast to cut it. were your cuts 'across the grain' or with the grain, so to speak. certainly when cutting the stuff, its much easier to cut it going with the grain but i wondered, given that you fold the partial cuts, if its better to orient the cuts with or against the grain to facilitate strength and resistance to fold fatigue.

[@NiFamilyLights]

Thanks for asking. Yes, it's much easier to cut Coro along "the grain", and I have a tool that makes that super easy. However, the mini trees don't have any straight lines, so there's no getting around cutting the Coro at some sort of angle. What I did was trace out what I wanted to waste the least amount of coro and went from there. There's no particular mini tree that feels any stronger or weaker than any other.

[@pgc4147]

your vid was very helpful in designing the trees. The back section I had to do some estimates for the sides but they worked out ok. I ended up using a dremel ultasaw to do the cutting;. used a blade for metal which is very thin and was able to adjust the depth so that it cut through the first and most of the second layer of coroplast no geustimations with this technique. enjoy your vids. quite stimulating

[@Rick210Texans]

Where did you buy the board from?

[@NiFamilyLights]

I got the 4mm coro from the local home improvement store. They had smaller pieces so I had to special order full 4x8 sheets.

[@RichardLoucks-et1es]

I can’t keep it straight in my mind - are the female plugs for the input or are they rhe make plugs

[@NiFamilyLights]

The female plugs are the ones with the power, just like your home outlets. The male plugs are the beginning of your lights which are getting the power from the female end. Hopefully that helps you to keep them straight in your mind.