Trip's House of Cards

[Trip]

Well I haven't posted here much since I got started back at the beginning of this year. I been hard at work building. I am going to blog about what I have done so far and how my first time experience is at not only DIYC, but christmas lights in general. This is my first year with a house, first year with a wife, first year to put up christmas lights, and first year with DIYC. That's why I am calling it my house of cards, because it could all fall apart at any second. So I give ya'll a brief summary of what I have been through since I stopped posting and started lurking back at the beginning of the year.

Well I decided on the Ren64 xB using the RenT. I bought two Ren64s with 32 SSRs. Enough to grow into, but only built 1 Ren64 for the first year. Didn't really want to push it all that much. I will get more ambitious my second year, thinking maybe mega tree with a couple Ren16s.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/4128/img5869ei6.jpg

Got my Ren64 working back in March
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/2528/0123082132acp4.jpg

Got an enclosure that was recommended on the board along with my ebay fm transmitter, power supply, and RenT
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8512/0219081907ama9.jpg

Finished up the enclosure and got 16 SSRs ready to go for the season
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/2887909685_889e3a17db.jpg

Using a varation of the pod enclosure described on computer christmas to encapsulate my SSRs from the weather
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/3028891658_00efd45fb1.jpg

Finally, my new home all ready to decorate, got the red door painted the same as the shutters and grass in the yard now though.
http://i37.tinypic.com/29pey3m.jpg

I am going with a blue only minis/white only minis setup. Plan on getting some mini trees and doing some lines on the house itself for this year. Maybe some other elements. It's going to be a real simple design. Already working on sequences for Baby it's cold outside and Louisiana Christmas Day. Hopefully will get more done as the season moves on.

Time for some crawfish once they start coming in good.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3010/3038971567_c464f4c0fc.jpg


I also took full advantage of that deal alert at the beginning of the season and stocked up on the 3 extension cord deal at HD along with buying a ton of blues and whites at 75% off.

[kmc123]

Looks GREAT Trip!!!

[wbuehler]

Very nice Trip

Bill

[omzig]

"Tripping the Light Fantastic!"

[Trip]

Thanks guys, I owe a lot of ya'll thanks too, cause I had a ton of questions on flash chat in the beginning and all the ideas I stole off this board to be able to get where I am at.

[Dino242]

Y'all actually eat crawfish that far north? :)

[Trip]

Y'all actually eat crawfish that far north? :)

I have to have them shipped up, it's costly, but yeah I get em up here. Have to watch out and make sure you don't get a dead batch. I am originally from what use to be Buras, LA.

[tonypgst]

Love the picture of the boiling pot. Having grown up in Lafayette, LA, I'm all to familiar with boiling crawfish. Heck, I miss the days of cooking up a few hundred pounds at a time for the family get togethers.

[rlilly]

Trip!

Glad to see you're in the spirit! Don't worry. The cards bond and reinforce themselves to become one entity. Stronger together....

I spent a few years in Lafayette myself. Earls meat market for the barbeque sausage and rib eyes. The Best Stop for smoked boudin. Laissez le bon ton roulez, cher!

Hard to get good tow sacks of crawfish outside that state though. I'm next door and sorely dissappointed....

[Blackbeard]

Trip,

Here in WV, I can only get frozen crawfish. They're not bad, but nothing like I had down in NO. They apparently freeze them pretty quickly after being caught. WalMart of all places. I really liked what they could do with crawdads(what we call them here) and tomatoes in New Orleans.

And your story about the lights is great also. I'm just a few-days-old newbie to the hobby, but think I'll go with a single Renard 64 for now. Still not sure. So your tale is encouraging for those like me.

[Macrosill]

Nice work Trip. Congrats on the new wife and house. Glad to see you posting again.

[Wayne J]

That is a whole lot of new stuff happening! Congrats and good luck!

[Trip]

Nice work Trip. Congrats on the new wife and house. Glad to see you posting again.

Thanks man, I should be around more. Just had so much going on this year I just finally got settled and my head stopped spinning. After the wedding in october, I have a ton more free time now.


That is a whole lot of new stuff happening! Congrats and good luck!

You aren't kidding, this year has been stressful. Thanks!


Trip,

Here in WV, I can only get frozen crawfish. They're not bad, but nothing like I had down in NO. They apparently freeze them pretty quickly after being caught. WalMart of all places. I really liked what they could do with crawdads(what we call them here) and tomatoes in New Orleans.

And your story about the lights is great also. I'm just a few-days-old newbie to the hobby, but think I'll go with a single Renard 64 for now. Still not sure. So your tale is encouraging for those like me.


Trip!

Glad to see you're in the spirit! Don't worry. The cards bond and reinforce themselves to become one entity. Stronger together....

I spent a few years in Lafayette myself. Earls meat market for the barbeque sausage and rib eyes. The Best Stop for smoked boudin. Laissez le bon ton roulez, cher!

Hard to get good tow sacks of crawfish outside that state though. I'm next door and sorely dissappointed....

I have a guy in knoxville that use to live in lafayette that trucks them up live. He runs a chain of seafood markets in town called the shrimp dock. You get good batches and horrible batches, but it's better than nothing.

[Trip]

oh blackbeard, best thing I can tell ya is buy lots of lights and extension cords when everything is 75% off after christmas. You can never have enough extension cords. Lots and lots of them.

The ren64 was a good project, I am sure the XC makes things much easier by including everything you need on the board instead of having to go through the RenT. Stock up on home depot/lowes coupons as well. You never know when you will need to take a trip out there to grab something.

[Trip]

Lights have started going up on the house. Got most of them up on the house except the really high garage peak. My 28 ft ladder is not the safest solution to putting these up. Trying to see if I can get a bucket truck from a friend.

Lessons Learned:

28 ft ladders falling on your head/shoulders hurt.

Trying to wire a cat5 cable at the top of same ladder (only about 14 ft up though) is not a smart idea.

It gets cold up on the roof at night really quickly.

Thank god for vampire plugs.

Holy crap that's a lot of wires on the house.

Whoever made these shingle/gutter clips that you can put up with a 11 ft pole is a freakin moron and needs a crotch punch.

The skin on my hand is really thin and bleeds a lot.

Don't let your mom help you move a ladder.

[Trip]

How's the YT embedding work here?

Anyway, here is a vid of my lights. Sequences need lots of work to spice them up (didn't save any time for them, damn) and my house doesn't really have that many channels this year. Hopefully going to add red/green to the mix next year and do a 10' mega tree and a couple leaping arches. Have since added Wizards in winter. I robbed someone's THX startup, I forget who's, but thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE8kuPL3134

dE8kuPL3134

[Macrosill]

I edited the youtube tags you used. To embed a YouTube video you need to use youtube as a tag. yt will not work.

[wbuehler]

Trip

Looks good

Bill

[Trip]

I edited the youtube tags you used. To embed a YouTube video you need to use youtube as a tag. yt will not work.

thanks, it's different everywhere I go it seems.

[LightOut]

Way to go Trip!

[Trip]

Way to go Trip!

I want to see your show. Got any vids. I need to make my way out there.

[Dino242]

Looks good...

You've come a long way from Buras!

Hahaha

[Trip]

Looks good...

You've come a long way from Buras!

Hahaha

thanks

lol, no crap. I miss it, but I am glad to be out of the bayou. Went back for thanksgiving, it's so depressing down there. At least the bar was rebuilt as soon as the storm was over.

[Trip]

If Bill gets to continue his here, I will as well. Since mine isn't very long, I will just keep the same thread.

2009 plans

2 Ren24s (got the boards ordered from Frank Early Bird Coop and got the parts ordered with some various board members done outside the board.)

Build my second Ren64 XB

Build a 10 foot mega tree
current plans are to use both Ren24s to power this. Either 16 channels 50ct of blue, white, and green or 12 channels of 100ct (50 up and back down) of the same 3 colors. Not sure how I am going to string it yet. I also will use some more channels to place standalone red C9 bulbs all over the tree to give it an ornamental appearance and probably a 1 channel star. This all came about from listening to Blue Christmas and I want to sequence the lyrics about the green tree with red decorations to it.

Build between 3-5 mini arches in white minis. Approx. 8 channels a piece for these, just in white.

I have a light pole that sits between me and my neighbors yard, I plan to turn that into a 8-10 channel fountain pole in white.

Bought a 48inch reindeer at wally world at 50% off and will place a red C9 for the nose for rudolph sequencing.

Bought 200 minis from wally world to use for all this at 50% off. Still had a ton of minis left over from 2008, so I am sure I have enough.

Still looking for a Light Keeper Pro at 75% off, if anyone has extras let me know.

I am going to build a couple of temporary power stations that I can wire up around the house during christmas utilizing my spare breakers.

So hopefully I will go from 41 channels dimmed to 176 channels dimmed. I have more time to work on it this year with no wedding or moving to do, so it should all get done. I plan to do it in stages throughout the year to space out the work so I am not overloaded at any point.

I also am looking for a unique idea, some kind of design that is different than anything out there. Something that utilizes mini lights would be great.